


Enslaved By My Ex-Boyfriend In An Isekai Hellscape

by yuzukitea



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Anal, Asphyxiation, BDSM, Blindfolds, Blood, Bondage, Branding, Cruelty, Cutting, Dark, Death, Demon Sex, Demons, Dom/sub, Dystopia, Electricity, Explicit Sexual Content, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Forced Relationship, Fucked Up, Gags, Gang Rape, Gore, Guro, Heavy Angst, Hell, Hurt/Comfort, Masochism, Master/Slave, Mental Health Issues, Mind Control, Murder, Near Death Experiences, Non-Consensual, Not Really Character Death, Nudity, Past Relationship(s), Piercings, Porn, Rape, Rape Fantasy, Rape/Non-con Elements, Romance, Rough Sex, Sadism, Self-Harm, Sex Toys, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Slavery, Sexual Violence, Slavery, Smut, Stockholm Syndrome, Tentacles, Torture, Trauma, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence, Violent Sex, Whipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:42:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 34
Words: 48,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27584260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuzukitea/pseuds/yuzukitea
Summary: When Liu Xuelan broke up with her high school online boyfriend and went to study abroad, she thought she'd never see that frightening stalker ever again. Six years later, she woke up one Halloween night to discover that her ex-boyfriend reincarnated as a level one incubus in a hellish universe, and that he abducted her to serve as his exclusive sex slave for the rest of eternity...
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 41
Kudos: 64





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story is total trash and I'm embarrassed to have even come up with it. Warning: Enormous non-con/dub-con alert, not for those who are faint of heart. It’s very dark and inconsistent. I'm not very good at writing smut. I'm not very good at plot either... Originally posted on ScribbleHub.

You know how all of us have certain things on our Internet history we'd rather not let anyone else know about?

24-year-old Liu Xuelan (刘雪兰) could certainly agree, especially since she was applying to medical school in the United States. There were certain parts of her black history that absolutely had to be crushed and incinerated in a sterilizing flame, lest it show up in inconvenient places when she started interviewing with various admissions committees across the country. Like heck, wouldn't it be awkward if they dug up:

  * The type of X-rated porn she liked to read (...definitely not kosher for medical school...)
  * Smut that she wrote and published under a pseudonym
  * Her extensive ERP logs that she had over Discord
  * Nudes that she had taken of herself and sent to various guys that she flirted with online
  * Even a video of herself that she had uploaded to the Internet when she was young and stupid...



In either case, Xuelan was prepared to instantly deny the existence of any of these as soon as any accusations came up.

If she had learned anything from various American presidents, it was important to deny first and think of the excuses later. As a Chinese national who came to the United States for college, Xuelan was totally fine with the stereotypes of meek and fashion-obsessed rich Chinese immigrants who spoke poor English. She was genuinely an outstanding student, and it was always easy to impress people with her flawless English that lacked any amount of an accent. People often mistook her for an American-Born Chinese (ABC), and she fit neatly into the mold of a model minority, especially since she could play three instruments, took leadership positions in volunteer clubs, and finished top ten in her university's Math Olympiad even though she wasn't even a mathematics major.

Her carefully cultivated resume was beginning to look flawless!

Minus, of course, the parts that obviously had to be blacked out.

Xuelan had been a bit of a wild teenager in the past, and she had been far more rogue before coming to the States.

Much of that had been typical teenage insecurities, and Xuelan hadn't been allowed to date. Her parents had always insisted that there were more important things to focus on, and as sexist as it might sound, they always urged that she should start looking for a boyfriend after getting to a nice Tsinghua-tier university rather than rolling around in the weeds early.

Of course, like any model Asian child, Xuelan had smiled sweetly in front of her parents, immediately turned around, got on the computer, and did the exact opposite when they weren't looking.

Her first teenage foray into the vast ocean of the Internet landed her with this foreigner from Southeast Asia who went with the online username: "Kestrel". They met on an anonymous chat section of a nondescript BDSM roleplaying site, and he was somewhere four to five years older than her (Xuelan lied about being an adult). Because of language barriers, they mostly communicated in English, which teenage Xuelan incidentally found kind of hot.

It didn't take long before they were dating online. 

Kestrel asked for her nudes, and she sent them. Eventually, they were messaging constantly, and her boyfriend even sent sex toys over international shipping to a P.O. box in Shanghai that Xuelan had set up to discreetly receive his packages in order to conceal her real home address. Some of the vibrators were really nice, and Xuelan was still using them six years later after moving to the United States.

The most intriguing part was that he was definitely some kind of gangster. He claimed that his real name was "Kien", which was a Vietmanese name, and Xuelan would always listen curiously to the stories that he told about the turf wars he got into with rival gangs. Apparently, they were involved in a lot of smuggling and drug trafficking, which stimulated Xuelan's morbid curiosity about the certain darker horrors of an underground lifestyle. Some of the things that he described sounded frightening, but Xuelan felt comfortable behind the relative safety of her computer monitor. 

Overall, he was hot, sexy, and nice, and he always gave her a plenty of wonderful attention.

Aside from the fact that Xuelan always knew that she had an emergency bail-out button in the back of her mind, she genuinely felt like he was her real digital boyfriend through a majority of high school. She dreamt about him, fantasized about him, and maybe even loved him.

Until one day, on her eighteenth birthday, Kien showed up **_in person_** and stopped her on the way home from school with a birthday cake.

Xuelan had never told her real address, her real name, her real age, or anything like that. However, he still flew all the way to Shanghai and managed to track down her real identity. She had no idea how long he had known or how he had found out.

Naturally, the high school girl freaked out and immediately pulled the ejection lever.

Fortunately, she was in the process of applying to colleges, so she abandoned all the domestic Chinese universities she was originally planning to attend and instead submitted applications to universities in the US, Canada, Europe, and elsewhere. She wanted to get as far away as possible from that freakish stalker, and preferably go somewhere that he could never follow.

Xuelan ghosted him, deleted her account, and stopped responding to his text messages.

Her high school romance ended with an abrupt and frightening scare.

It was a period of her black history that she never intended to discuss with anyone.

Six years later, she never imagined that she'd ever encounter that unspeakable person again.

∎


	2. The gift wrap is complimentary

It was Halloween of a certain year, and Liu Xuelan was preparing to fly to Chicago where she had an interview scheduled at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. She had a flight scheduled at seven o'clock AM the next day, which meant that she had to be out the door at five o'clock in order to get to the airport in time for her flight.

Unfortunately, her apartment roommates were hosting a Halloween party, and there was a steady thumping din of music in the background. Xuelan had excused herself and gone to her room early, but there were plenty of guests still wandering around and retching in the bathroom, which was constantly flushing just outside of her door.

In order to help herself fall sleep, Xuelan had taken a tablet of melatonin, hoping that she'd float off to dreamland sooner rather than later.

Liu Xuelan went to bed.

\+ + +

The next thing she knew, she woke up to find herself in a bit of a bind.

A literal bind, that is.

Her first reaction was naturally: Fuck!

There was a large phallic-shaped device that was shoved down her throat, and her vision was completely dark, presumably covered with a cloth blindfold that was wound around her head.

Xuelan could tell that she was laying on her back on some kind of fluffy surface. The air felt breezy, so she was probably close to naked, although she could faintly perceive some cloth ribbons and other dangling scraps of paper-thin cloth that snaked across her body. Her wrists were bound to her ankles, and her knees were lecherously splayed open for display, exposing the most intimate parts of her body.

A steady buzz from a vibrating shaft inserted in her rear entrance rounded off her predicament.

"Is this the one you want?" An unfamiliar voice came from a short distance away.

Xuelan was preoccupied with a panic when she realized that she couldn't breath. The long deepthroat gag blocked her trachea, and she was unable to suck in any air. The terrible discomfort aside, the premedical student struggled against her bonds, desperate to indicate to someone that she needed help.

They couldn't be intending to kill her, right?

Her mind spun in a frantic mess. She tried to remember how she had gotten here. All she remembered was that there had been a Halloween party and that she retired to her room early. Xuelan had taken some sleep medications, so did that mean that one of the guys had broken into her bedroom? But what about her roommates? There was no way they would allow this, so were they in a similar situation? Had someone called the police??

No one moved to Xuelan's assistance.

There was a soft hand that gently patted her head affectionately, which was horribly ironic given her dreadful plight.

"Yes, this is the one." The voice closest to her said. "Nice packaging, by the way."

"Yes, we take pride in our Underworld reincarnation service. As a gold tier rewards member, the gift wrap, of course, is complimentary."

"Any terms and conditions?"

The man's hand continued to comb through Xuelan's hair as he spoke.

Somehow, Xuelan had a sinking feeling that voice seemed vaguely familiar... where had she heard it before?

"Of course, once the contract ritual is sealed, it is unconditional. You will own her absolutely and comprehensively, down to every detail of her customization. In a sense, you are her god, and you are free to modify and control her however you desire. There is a factory reset button for her current consciousness, in case you happen to break her mind too hard by accident and need to revert it. Of course, the only caveat is that you may not make her more powerful than yourself."

"And just to confirm, my power as a demon is directly proportional to the amount of sex I have?"

"Correct. You are currently a level one incubus. You thrive on sexual energy."

"Fair enough. And does she get anything out of the contract?"

"The girl does not lose anything. The current ego before you is a replica of the girl's soul. The original whom you are so fond of is untouched back on Earth, and she will continue to live her ordinary life. Since it is a copy, you do not have to concern yourself with her wellbeing. You can think of this as a fictitious dream body for your repressed desires, and rest assured that anything you do in the Underworld will have no bearing on the mortal world."

Xuelan's lungs were burning and her throat muscles were twitching around the foreign shaft. A hundred different deeply alarming things were flying by her ears, but the lack of air was screaming at her. She had no time to process exactly what they were saying, or wonder why one of the man's voices sounded so familiar. 

"She seems uncomfortable. Can I do something about that?" The nostalgic voice said.

_Uncomfortable, my ass! You try taking this monster down your throat!_

If Xuelan could remove this blindfold, her eyes would have been furious. 

"Oh, the gag? You needn't worry. She won't actually die from asphyxiation. There are only a small number of things that are actually capable of killing her... since well... you are in Hell after all. But if you insist, Mr. Incubus, you do already have a limited amount of control over your future slave. Why don't you try ordering her to breath?"

The abducted girl suddenly felt her upper torso lighten, and her bound body was lifted into a man's lap.

Soft hands caressed the side of her cheeks, brushing aside the hair that had already started to unwind into a wild mess. His fingers stroked the side of her face, hesitantly and tenderly as if he wasn't quite entirely sure that the girl in front of him was real.

"Breath for me, dear Glaciele." He whispered into her ears.

Suddenly, Xuelan's lungs filled with air, except also not really. The relief was immediate, but she still couldn't breath. The phallus was still stretching her throat, except somehow she magically no longer needed oxygen through her mouth. Her brain was flooded with stars concurrently with the burst of relief, and she jerked within the man's arms.

She... suddenly knew who this was.

There was only one person who would use that name.

Glaciele was the online username that she used back in high school, back in the days when she explored BDSM roleplaying sites as a teenager. It was based on her Chinese name (刘雪兰), which literally meant "Snow Orchid". 

But that was six years ago. She had intentionally gone to an overseas university in order to avoid the stalker, and she hadn't heard a single peep from him over all of these years. Xuelan had only assumed that she had successfully shaken him off of her tail, and she had been satisfied to bury that entire regrettable experience off as a stupid teenage mistake from her youth.

Kestrel... or Kien...?

The man slowly untied the blindfold around Xuelan's eyes.

The girl was immediately exposed to the upside down visage of his face. It was clearly demonic in quality, and the angles on his cheek bones were sharper than before. His hair was as black as night and his eyes had a heavy shadow that seemed ominous and oppressive. A pair of magnificent golden horns peaked over the crown of his head, and sharp fangs were visible in the corners of his mouth.

It... was him... different... but definitely him.

Xuelan's eyes were damp and teary, a natural product of having her gag reflex constantly stimulated by such a cruel invader.

He reached around her neck and undid the buckle that held the phallus inside her mouth. 

He withdrew the vile thing in one continuous motion, and Xuelan was almost stunned to see the whole girth of the entire length as it came out right in front of her eyes, slathered in a thick layer of dripping mucus while she coughed violently. It was at least ten inches long, and far larger than anything she had ever tried to take inside in her body.

Even if Xuelan had been a bit of a curious teenager, she was still a relatively normal girl. Her healthy interest in BDSM was entirely fictional and even ordinary. She did not have any crazy kinks, and she knew perfectly well that BDSM was supposed to be safe, sane, and consensual.

All of this was way too intense... it was completely insane...

Xuelan's ex-boyfriend had a frightening smile on his face.

"Any last words before I make you into my sex slave for the rest of eternity?"

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! ...I'll go hide in shame now... @.@


	3. I apologize in advance, so don’t hate me

"Kien. Fuck you."

"You've grown cuter in the six years since I've last seen you, Xue."

Xuelan was almost positive that her demonized ex-boyfriend was bullshitting. She had hardly grown at all since she was sixteen, and if anything, his eyes were broken. The 24-year-old was well aware of the fact that her face was totally mediocre. She had acne, freckles, and glasses, and she wore her bangs so long in high school that they almost covered her eyes. In short, she was sort of a bookish nerd who tried too hard in school and was unpopular with both sexes.

In fact, her insecurity about her body was one of the main reasons she found solace on the Internet. Even though it was the complete opposite of her real-life personality, flirting with digital strangers made her feel loved and attractive. Lonely fat men were stupidly easy to please, and she could practically feel their lust for her through the computer monitor. Even when she felt particularly down and worthless, she took some kind of weird comfort in the idea that at least somebody found her naked body worth masturbating over. Afterwards, she'd inevitably end up crying herself to sleep, which ocurred on a regular basis.

Summarily, Xuelan did not have a particularly fruitful dating life in college. Aside from her high school fiasco, none of her relationships ever lasted more than one or two months. She had a number of one-night-stands, but none of her partners wanted a more serious relationship, which only served to destroy her fragile sense of self-esteem even further.

"You're a liar and a creep, Kien. A pervert. And a stalker. What the fuck is this, by the way? Abducting me? To be a sex slave? Seriously?!"

Xuelan's words were barbed, and she intensionally lashed out with the most vicious things that she could think of. The young women had overheard a tiny gist of the conversation earlier, and she was naturally upset, even though she didn't understand everything. Her wrists chafed uselessly against the impossibly strong rope-like material, so she could only resort to trying to hurt her ex-boyfriend's feelings in any way possible.

"You're a fucking pedophile! I was fifteen when you sent me sex toys in the mail!"

It was unclear what Xuelan was trying to accomplish, but the anger was blatantly apparent in her eyes.

The demon suddenly laughed.

"You've gotten so fiery." He seemed entirely unbothered. "I kind of like it. You used to be so shy, Xue."

"What the hell happened to you?"

"Oh you know, the ordinary stuff. I shot some people. Then I died. Ended up in hell. Somehow became a sex demon."

Kien suddenly fondled Xuelan's exposed breasts, as if to prove a point.

The young woman grimaced and tried to crane her neck around to face her ex-boyfriend properly. Unfortunately, their positions made this maneuver physically impossible, since she was basically trussed up in his lap with his arms wrapped around her like a big spoon. He kissed the nape of her neck while his hands drifted and slid over the soft curves of her body like a gliding serpent.

There was a distressed look in Xuelan's eyes, and she seemed shell-shocked.

Emotionally, she was horribly conflicted. She was starting to remember the three years that she spent dating Kien in high school, but their relationship had been entirely virtual across international boundaries. They had basically never even touched or held hands. Admittedly, she had spent many nights sexually fantasizing about him, but it was never supposed to be like this.

Kien was gentle and funny. Even though he was a gangster, he had a real soft spot for heartwarming things. From time to time he could get really scary and firm, and he wasn't somebody to mess around with when he was serious, but Xuelan had always believed that he wouldn't really harm her. He generally seemed to respect her boundaries and listen to her opinions, although he could get a bit frighteningly obsessive on the rare occasion.

...But that was back when she still liked him...

This... this was just like getting one of her teenage dreams thoroughly ravaged and destroyed.

There was an abrupt painful twist of her nipples, and his opposite hand started to explore the folds of her vulva.

Xuelan cried out, her bound limbs stopping her from mounting any kind of effective resistance. Her shoulders were trembling.

"Kien. Stop. No. I don't want this."

The demon ignored her protests, and in fact he seemed to pull even harder on her sensitive nibs.

Two fingers slid into her tight front canal.

He whispered softly into her ear.

"They told me that I'll need to fuck lots of ladies in order to be strong enough to fight."

He plunged even deeper, and the tip of his fingers bottomed out against her cervix.

"But I don't have much of an interest for raping random strangers down here, you know? It doesn't turn me on."

Kien brushed his thumb over Xuelan's swollen clitoris, grazing it ever so slightly.

The girl's pale skin had a feverish rosy blush, and her entire body was shaking uncontrollably. She had stopped breathing some time ago, as if she was afraid that entire soul would escape if a single noise slipped out of her mouth. Her eyes were tightly squeezed shut.

Xuelan suddenly felt his fangs sinking down on her neck.

"Ah!" She gasped suddenly as her eyes snapped open.

But then the fiery sensation immediately vanished. His whispering breath danced outside of her ear, nibbling occasionally on her cartilage.

"It's a godsend that I was able to snatch a piece of you from Earth. I'm unbelievably relieved. I don't know what I would have done if the summoning ritual failed."

Kien's fingers curled up in a come-hither motion. They dived in once more for a good measure, and then rapidly withdrew from her hole while dragging out a long trail of sticky sexual fluids.

"So don't hate me, okay? I apologize in advance. I'm sorry. But I want to live."

He lifted the girl ever so slightly and aligned his engorged cock with her lower crevice. The head of his erection poked right against the opening of her lips. Xuelan could almost feel the tip sliding into her sopping wet pussy, but it was stopped purely by the fact that her ring of muscle hadn't quite spread enough to accommodate his entire girth all at once.

Xuelan whimpered quietly with a look of vacant despair in her eyes.

Then, he thrusted hard with no regrets.

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who can't speak Chinese, Xue is pronounced "Shu-reh".
> 
> A brief public service announcement: "No means no" and "Yes means yes". If someone says that they don't want to have sex, that means stop. Period. Don't try to read your partner's mind or delude yourself into thinking that reverse psychology must be going on. The only exception to this rule is if you have an explicit BDSM-like arrangement with your partner with clear safewords established.
> 
> This fiction has non-con/dub-con elements (otherwise known as "rape fantasies"), but obviously is not an endorsement of the real thing.


	4. “Preparation” x 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enormous trigger warning for rape. This chapter dives deep into the victim's headspace, so don't expect it to be fun.

For the first sixty seconds, it was kind of enjoyable.

Xuelan's eyes widened and she twitched on top of Kien's cock, her body stimulated by wave after wave of pleasure. His searing hot member filled every inch of her folds and she could feel him pulsating inside her. She exploded into an orgasm, far faster than she or anyone else might have expected, especially since the man had barely even gotten started.

She jerked a little and her pussy tightened. A faint mewl escaped out of her lips, but otherwise she shook like a small earthquake while remaining silent.

But after that first release, it only went downhill.

The demon did not slow down in the slightest, and he continued to pound away at her. He did not seem to give any fucks that she was oversensitive from just having an orgasm, and he thrusted with no awareness or concern about how she was feeling. It was just like being assaulted by a machine, and Xuelan was rapidly overstimulated to the point that it started to hurt.

The reality of the situation slowly started to dawn on her.

She was being raped.

Raped by her ex-boyfriend who had turned into a sex demon.

Her feelings and pleasure did not matter at all in this situation. Kien was using her as an inanimate object to satisfy his own needs. Regardless if she enjoyed it or hated every moment of it, he was going to keep thrusting until every part of her was sore.

A swath of fear suddenly washed over her heart.

Was this what it was going to be like for the rest of eternity? How long was an eternity? Did they mean a literal eternity, or was it just a figure of speech? Would she even stay sane if this this was her everlasting fate? 

She suffered for some time, and finally the incubus thrusted hard and shot his load into her womb.

The liquid was hot and the massive jet of semen was like a tidal wave. There was so much cum that it immediately filled every corner of her uterus, and the excess spilled out around the base of his cock like a fountain gushing with milk.

"Ah..."

Xuelan's eyes rolled upward slightly as the hot liquid streamed down her thighs.

She was conflicted yet almost relieved that he was done.

At least it was over.

Kien pushed the girl off her position atop his lap. Xuelan went tipping forward, and his cock slid out of her overflowing folds. Her wrists were still bound to her ankles, so she was unable to stop her descent, and her torso landed face-first into this soft futon-like material. With her face buried in the bedding, Xuelan turned her head to side, only to realize that she was positioned so that her rump was elevated conspicuously in the air.

"That's the first hole," the unfamiliar voice spoke up.

She had forgotten that there had been another demon that had been watching them the entire time.

"Plug it," he said emotionlessly. "Prep the other ones, and then we can start the enslavement ritual."

Something slid into her vagina, preventing any more semen from leaking out.

Those were Kien's hands manipulating the toy. She didn't understand, because now his fingers were gentle. They held the plug gently, and he was careful not to push too hard or abruptly, as if he wanted to give her muscles a chance to relax around the artificial phallus. His palm almost seemed affectionate as it rested on her flank for a brief moment.

It felt so contradictory and hypocritical, especially since he had raped her so ruthlessly just moments before.

Suddenly, the small vibrator that Xuelan had almost forgotten about was withdrawn from her anus. The smooth surface was sticky and slathered with generous amounts of lubrication. It was abundantly evident that her rear entrance was sufficiently prepared for the arrival of a new guest.

She had an unpleasant feeling in her stomach. Somehow, she had a sinking idea about where this was going next.

The man had just ejaculated, but he was ready to go for another round already? That kind of stamina was unfair.

"Sorry Xue," Kien whispered in her ears. "This next part might hurt more, so I'll try to finish as fast as I can."

"Kien, you—"

Xuelan did not get a chance to finish her sentence.

The incubus thrusted into her chrysanthemum, and Xuelan cried out in pain.

It felt like she was being split apart, and tears immediately began streaming down her face. This was her first time taking someone in the ass. Xuelan had no particular interest in anal sex in the past. She had heard from various sources that it hurt like hell, and consequently never had any burning desire to explore that particular realm of intercourse. For some reason, the idea of anal seemed much more popular among men, which perhaps made sense if you had a prostate, yet didn't quite change the fact that she knew many women who were badgered by their boyfriends into giving the other entrance a try.

Xuelan cried quietly as her ex-boyfriend pounded her from behind. She could feel his cock rubbing against the dildo in her pussy through the thin wall of her recto-vaginal septum, which filled her with an indescribable aching warmth deep inside the core of her body. However, the distress of her current situation mainly caused her to focus on the burning sensation of his shaft pumping through her anus.

Soon, Kien ejaculated once more with a groan, flooding her bowels with even more cum.

A plug was added like the first time, but there wasn't much of a reaction from the young woman.

Xuelan's body was limp against the bedding, there was a small damp spot on the futon where her tears had stained the soft fabric. She was quivering silently and almost dissociated from the entire experience. At this point, she was convinced that man that she had once loved was completely gone. She had been naive to think that perhaps things could return to the way it was like six years ago, but this demon obviously didn't hold a shred of concern for her.

The incubus stood up and helped push the girl up to her knees.

Everything about her was a complete mess, and her tearstained face was a canvas of despair and darkness.

She realized all of a sudden that his naked manhood was right in front of her nose.

It was eight or nine inches long, thick, curved, and heavily veined. The shaft was bathed in a translucent mixture of a variety of different sticky fluids, and it reeked heavily of her own sex as well as the musky odor of semen. It had also just been in her butt, which was a revolting thought, although the phallus somehow still smelled fairly clean.

Xuelan slowly looked upwards towards Kien's face.

The demon towered above her, his whole figure intimidating and oppressive with an evil aura that she didn't recognize.

"Open up." He said.

Xuelan didn't move, frozen in place.

He slapped her cheek lightly, which stung a little.

"Don't make me force you."

He grabbed her chin and slapped her again, so tears started streaming down Xuelan's face.

【 _Open_. 】He repeated.

An invisible force pulled her lips open. The incubus pushed his way in.

"Sorry," he said.

He thrusted. And thrusted.

She cried the entire time.

_Saying sorry doesn't make it any better..._

He kept thrusting.

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The entire novel isn't meant to be this dark. Unfortunately, my morbid headspace just sort of went there for this chapter, so I'm sorry if you found this disturbing.
> 
> This chapter (and the next one) is meant to break the MC emotionally and put her in a position where she loses all trust for the ML. From a plot perspective, I wanted the MC to realize that her situation is really dark, and give myself a thought exercise about what it must feel like if a rape fantasy goes beyond a mere pleasurable fantasy (as it is often portrayed in porn). In a sense, I'm writing past my own limits of what I personally enjoy so I can relate with what my protagonist is experiencing.
> 
> The original idea of this story is to write a stockholm dubcon fic where the MC is totally shell-shocked in the beginning, but gradually adapts to her new lifestyle and finds meaning (and even love) out of it. The ML isn't supposed to be pure evil (and he does care about the MC in his own twisted way), and they'll gradually start to understand each other better, especially as the more typical isekai adventure chapters start up.


	5. Demonic ritual

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Too hardcore... mostly horror :c

A white silicone-like ball gag went into her mouth, right over the massive load of semen he emptied down her throat.

The incubus used his thumb to wipe away the tears rolling down her eyes, and he bent over to kiss her on the forehead.

Xuelan coughed and tried to turn away from his touch, still struggling to swallow any residual salty fluid that was stuck in her mouth. The aftertaste was overpowering, and the immediate addition of the gag guaranteed that she wouldn't be getting rid of the flavor any time soon. She hated how the demon pretended to be intimate, especially after all the unconscionable things he did. Did he think that acting nice would get her to forgive him? Of course not! That was a delusional idea! This man was insane!

"You did great, Xue." He brushed her hair warmly. "Thank you. Seriously. It was hard for you. I know."

Kien kissed her softly over both eyes and then pulled away.

She hated this. She hated all of this.

The incubus turned to face the sinister demon that was in the room with them.

"My seed and three arcane seals. It's done. What's next?" There was a serious look on Kien's face, in stark contrast with the tenderness he showed towards Xuelan. "You said there was a time limit... that if I fail to bind the girl's soul before the summoning magic expires, her wandering spirit will fall to the ninth circle of Hell."

The stranger suddenly laughed.

"Why do you care so much, friend? The girl is just a copy. It's no big deal if one or two replicas burn in Hades' undying hellfire for the rest of eternity. If you fail this time around, you can just summon another one and try again."

"I would prefer not to go through this more than once. It is not exactly a pleasant process."

"Heh. Sentimentality is a dangerous liability in this kind of place. You would do best to eliminate your superfluous emotions."

"I appreciate the advice, Vhodrar. You help has been invaluable. However, I will carve my own path."

The other demon shook his head helplessly and folded his arms. He pointed forwards.

"The ritual chamber is up ahead. I have already made the necessary preparations. Get the girl on the altar, and I will join you shortly."

\+ + +

The ritual chamber was like a hybrid between a cathedral and and a medieval dungeon. The lighting was gloomy and dark, and a variety of frightening torture implements that Xuelan did not want to think about were displayed the walls. The ceiling was high and countless chains hung loosely from the rafters.

A long aisle ran down the center of the hall, much like the nave of Catholic church. Rows of empty benches lined each side of the aisle, until the carpeted runner stopped in front of the centerpiece of the eerie chamber, which was surrounded by a bloody pentagram marked onto the floor. The sigils were intricate and illegible, and they glimmered in the faint candlelight.

The altar was a large metal ring that was suspended upright in the air, fixed in place by a spiderweb of black chains.

Goosebumps rose on Xuelan's skin as the incubus carried her to the altar.

The gag in her mouth was uncomfortable, and she could feel thin trails of semen trickling down her leg. Each of the plugs that were inserted in her holes were very large, and they shifted inside every time her body moved.

Kien was silent while he undid her bounds and locked each of her limbs to the shackles that hung from the large circle. The chains were wound up until they were tight, and they rattled loudly as they withdrew. It felt like she was being pulled apart, and soon Xuelan was spread-eagled in the center of the demonic circle, her naked body on full display.

Her nude body was facing the floor-length window on opposite side of the altar. The semi-circular apse was constructed out of pure glass, and Xuelan was suddenly aware that she had a full panorama of the outside. For the first time since she was summoned to this hellish universe, she stared at the exterior world.

It was red.

The skies were blood-red like dusk, and three crescent-shaped moons lurked beyond the dark clouds. Grotesque winged creatures flapped around in the distance, and crowds of little moving dots on the ground were like ants.

They were on a tower, high in the sky.

She felt exposed, as if she had been placed here for the entire world to witness this unholy ceremony.

A ritual that was... going to make her into... a demon's sex slave...

Xuelan's throat felt tight.

Kien suddenly walked in front of the window, blocking her view of the crimson skies. The incubus was looking at her.

"You may begin when ready." The other demon's sinister voice suddenly came from behind her. At some point, Vhodrar had walked into the room, but Xuelan had missed his entrance.

The sigils on the ground started to glow red, and Xuelan abruptly felt a warm sensation inside her body. It gradually grew hotter... inside the cavities of her pelvis, down the depths of her throat, and into her stomach. She realized that the cum inside of her was heating up, and the stiff plugs in her orifices prevented the burning sensation from escaping. Soon, her insides felt like they were on fire.

Xuelan squeezed her eyes tightly shut for a moment, but when she opened again, she suddenly realized that a long cascading white gossamer gown had somehow materialized over her skin, flutteringly slightly on the altar.

"Her inner soul has been drawn out into the material world." The sinister demon commented with a wicked and almost giddy voice.

A faint breeze had started to circulate around the pentagram, and the current was cold as ice. Tiny flakes of frost drifted in the stale air, fluttering as they slowly descended to the ground.

The girl craned her neck down to get a better look at herself, and... 

...Why did it look so much like a wedding dress?

"The clothing symbolizes her privacy, dreams, and dignity." The demon spoke. "You will need to strip it all away."

Xuelan looked back up towards Kien, a look of confusion on her face. She didn't understand what Vhodrar was saying.

But then she realized that the incubus was holding a whip.

Her eyes slowly made contact with the man's amber pupils.

There was a splitting crack. Then her lower abdomen burst on fire with a searing gash of pain.

Xuelan screamed into her gag. The lash sliced through her dress, shredding the fabric, and leaving a bright red welt on her skin. It hurt more than anything she had experienced in her life, and she tried to wrench her body to the side. However, she was tightly stretched on the demonic frame, and there was no way for her to avoid any of the coming onslaught.

Her vision blurred with tears.

She couldn't even see through the water in her eyes, and the next lash landed on her left breast.

Her muffled wails and sharp screams echoed through the hall.

A crack, then a shriek. Over and over.

It didn't take long before Xuelan lost track of time.

Everything sank into a haze of terrible suffering.

\+ + + 

When it was over, Xuelan hung totally limp on the upright demonic circle.

The white cloth was in shredded tatters on the ground all around her, and her entire body was criss-crossed with terrible welts and whip marks. A mixture of tears, saliva, cum, and body fluids streamed down her body, a majority of which leaked from the plugs that protruded rudely from her holes. Her braid of black hair was partially undone, and little strands of damp hair were plastered to her body from heavy perspiration.

Her mouth felt so dry.

Everything burned, and her brain was still screaming from hurt.

Her swollen and puffy eyes slowly traveled upward, but then she noticed a burning brazier on the edge of her peripheral vision.

The two demons were standing around the fireplace. 

They pulled out a red hot iron from the shadowy flame.

Xuelan's eyes widened, and she tried to move her lips despite the gag, but her mouth was too parched to even make a noise.

She shook her head back and forth frantically, and pulled against her chains weakly. Her entire body was trembling.

"A magical brand of hellfire. The symbol of a slave's submission." That hateful voice spoke.

Someone held her down, and the horrible sizzling brand went on her pelvis.

Her vision exploded in pure white.

\+ + +

As her consciousness slowly faded back in, Xuelan was no longer suspended on circle. She had been taken down from the spiderweb of chains, and the uncomfortable plugs were gone from her body. Kien was holding her in his arms and stroking her hair softly.

"It's almost over," he murmured quietly.

Across from him, there was a silver tray with twelve black rings and studs of assorted sizes, and one circular black snakeskin cloth.

He picked up four of the larger circles and fitted them on her wrists and ankles.

Xuelan was too weak to resist. She was exhausted and spent.

As each ring slid in position, they immediately tightened and solidified as a stiff band. A second later, they started to dissolve and melt into her flesh, until they disappeared without a trace. However, even if they couldn't be seen, she could still feel the tightness and sagging weight of those ethereal cuffs. They were heavier than they looked.

"Cursed rings of restraint." Vhodrar added his emotionless comments from the side. "Ever present, ever lasting."

Kien extended his hands towards her face.

"To seal one's sight."

He wrapped snakeskin cloth around her eyes, which blinded her for a moment. But then it slowly dissolved, returning her vision for now.

"And for the rest..."

The incubus shifted for a moment, but then returned with a long and frightening needle.

Xuelan stiffened immediately in fear, but she was unable to move a muscle. She wasn't even able to blink. Nothing responded no matter how desperately she willed herself to move, and she realized belatedly that those four invisible cuffs sealed far many more movements than what was physically possible with just a few bands of metal.

He was going to pierce her.

She was terrified of needles.

There were a total of 7 smaller rings that still hadn't been placed.

Her tormenter stroked her nipples tenderly, and Xuelan felt her soul shrivel up on the inside.

\+ + +

The last thing to be added was a plain black collar.

Tears were flowing freely. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut. Her entire body was traumatized and trembling.

He kissed her on the lips as the final ring tightened and stiffened around her throat.

Out of all the cursed restraints, the collar was the only one that did not immediately disappear after it was placed.

This one would remain. Perpetually visible as a sign of her eternal servitude.

"You are mine now," he said. "Forever."

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's over! My goodness, I'm so relieved ;-; I hated this so much. I couldn't write the piercing part because it just freaks me out idk how I came up with all this. Sorry for all the skips (or maybe it was preferable that way??)  
> Anyhow... now that everything's thoroughly broken and messed up, now the real story can start! q-q ...after I stop crying, that is...


	6. Never forgive, never forget

A reddish glow trickled in through a single open window.

This was a small cheap bedroom inside a rickety inn. A thin layer of cracked plaster was peeling off the decrepit walls. The wooden beams on the ceiling looked like they were half-rotten, and the floor creaked constantly with the distant sound of footsteps shuffling around the building. Rusted iron pipes stuck out of the corner of the room, and an ugly corroded radiator beneath the window was clearly broken.

The outdoor view appeared to be some kind of dark medieval city that smelled faintly of sulfur. The dark skies were overcast and gloomy, and particles of floating black ash were adrift in the air. Black shadows and grotesque monstrous figures slowly lumbered through the dreary streets.

The black-haired woman was sitting on the bed with a rag blanket tightly wrapped around herself.

She was staring blankly out of the window. 

It felt like she was dreaming.

She had woken up in an unfamiliar bed a while ago, but the room had been empty.

Her eyes were swollen and puffy, but there was no use crying.

Instead, her expression was vacant.

Flashes of memories from the previous night shot through her mind, and it was impossible for her to escape from those traumatic thoughts.

The fresh piercings still hurt. On her nipples... and... that other unspeakable place... it felt like they were burning and they ached terribly. For ordinary piercings, she had heard it would take several days or even weeks for the soreness to go away. The dull gnawing pain was almost a constant reminder of the horrific nightmare that she had experienced.

It was confusing because, aside from the pain, all of her visible injuries were gone.

In fact, there was no sign of any damage anywhere on her body. Her nipples and clitoris looked perfectly intact and healthy, as if they had never been pierced with a diabolical needle at all. Xuelan stared at herself for a long time, trying to process the contradiction of how they looked fine yet burned as if they were on fire.

She gingerly touched herself, wanting to sooth the pain, but immediately learned a harsh lesson.

A powerful electric shock jolted through her the instant her fingers made contact. 

Xuelan cried out and folded over, spasming and trembling.

She... evidently wasn't allowed to touch herself in those places...

Based on various BDSM novels that she had read in her previous life, Xuelan generally understood that slaves often weren't allowed to pleasure themselves without their Master's permission. However, her current situation was clearly messed up. She wasn't even trying to masturbate. Her nipples hurt and she just wanted to touch them to alleviate the pain.

Whoever came up with this system clearly did not think things through...

...Or maybe it was intentional, and this cruel design was meant to maximize her suffering.

All of this was fucked up.

Having a BDSM fetish on Earth was one thing, but this wasn't BDSM.

It was pure sexual abuse, and Xuelan didn't find it arousing or erotic at all, especially since she was the one experiencing it.

This wasn't just a trashy online rape fantasy that she could simply tab away from with a mouse click.

\+ + +

The door suddenly opened and Kien walked in.

When they saw each other, both of them froze in place immediately.

Xuelan stopped breathing, and her body started to tremble uncontrollably. It was a physiological reaction, and she couldn't even stop herself. It was almost as if her body subconsciously remembered every horrific detail that he had done to her, and his mere presence evoked a sense of PTSD.

The 24-year-old never saw herself as a weak girl, and in fact she used to be a member of her university's Aikido1 team. Ordinarily, she knew how to remain calm when facing someone much bigger than her in a tournament, and she was well-versed in the technique of disarming an opponent with a knife. East Asian martial arts typically had a component called _ki_ (气), which referred to a person's fighting spirit, and Xuelan always thought that hers was rock solid.

However, facing her rapist was totally different from facing a robber with a knife.

This guy... Kien...

The collar around her neck suddenly felt tight, and the intimate parts of her body ached.

The memories of how he whipped her and mercilessly fucked her while she screamed were seared into her mind.

The strength melted away from her legs, and her knees shook violently.

"Xue..." His voice sounded hesitant.

He reached out his hand, but Xuelan flinched.

The incubus looked conflicted, and he immediately withdrew. The man seemed to struggle with finding the right words to say, and he averted his eyes towards the ceiling. Eventually, he appeared to give up on this difficult subject, and he awkwardly switched over to small talk to fill the tense atmosphere in the room.

Kien pulled a stale loaf of bread out of his bag.

"It's not much... but this was all I could manage to bring back..."

He placed the loaf of bread on a wobbly plywood table.

"I don't have much money... but I'm level 2 now... thanks to yesterday..."

Xuelan shuddered all of a sudden, and she didn't know why.

"I'm sure you must be disappointed... since this isn't the nicest room... and you're probably starving..."

Tears spontaneously started flowing from her eyes.

"If we work hard, we'll figure out how to survive in this place. With the two of us together, I know we can do it."

She didn't care about any of that.

She didn't care about stupid bread or this stupid dilapidated room he rented.

Why didn't he understand?

Why was he talking to her like nothing had happened?

Why the fuck was he pretending to be her friend?!

And treating her like a normal person?

Their relationship ended six years ago and it wasn't ever coming back.

"I'm your sex slave, dammit!" Xuelan suddenly exploded and screamed at him. "Your sex slave!! I'm your sex slave!"

Hot tears spilled out of her ears in desperate fury and anger.

"So treat me like one!! Hurt me! Fuck me! Rape me! Use me like a dirty rag!! That's what you want, right?! It's what you summoned me into Hell for! I'm your personal slut for the rest of eternity!"

She screamed at the incubus with all her lungs.

"Whip me and break me and brainwash me into a doll! Treat me the fucking way you're supposed to!"

Her chest was heaving large volumes of air and her hoarse voice was cracked.

She slowly grew quieter. Her breathing was ragged, exhausted, and shaken.

"Don't make it so hard for me to hate you..."

There was a painful look in Xuelan's eyes.

"I will never forgive you."

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starting this new arc is difficult because there's a billion ways to do this chapter. I really debated for a long time how to begin, and I'm not sure if this was satisfactory.  
> Which direction should the story go? Should there be more rape? Dub-con? Or is it okay to slowly pivot to a more quasi-consensual relationship between the two protagonists?
> 
> I sort of worry that a lot of the readers are mainly here for graphic (non-consensual) sex scenes featured in the opening chapters, and I'm afraid that everyone will find the story boring if there's less hardcore sex. Is this true, or am I just imagining it?
> 
> For people who have read this far, what are your thoughts? I've put up a poll in order to satisfy my curiosity!


	7. U-turn?

The man was silent for a long moment.

Xuelan's shoulders shook, and her long hair was scattered in a disarray.

"We need to talk." He spoke firmly.

The girl slowly sank to the ground beside the bed, her body dragging the blanket. Her eyes looked vacant, and she didn't react.

"Tell me what you're honestly feeling. Don't hold anything back. I don't want to misunderstand you." Kien said.

She was filled with contempt.

If he wanted her to talk, she wasn't going to do it unless he forced it out of her.

That demon shaman from the Tower said that Kien controlled everything now, right? He could brainwash her, micro-manage her muscles, peek into her memories, and mind-control her deepest beliefs if he desired it. Total unconditional ownership meant that nothing was spared. If he was dissatisfied with her personality, there was probably a way for him to edit out the parts that he didn't like. He could easily convert her into a perfectly obedient and mindless sex doll.

Xuelan had no way of knowing how much longer she'd be able to remain herself. 

For that matter, was there any way to tell that he hadn't already modified her beyond recognition? What if he had already planted some kind of subconscious directive in her brain that she was unaware of? The psychopathic stalker could probably secretly order her to fall in love with him, and she would have no idea if her feelings were artificial or genuine.

Was she still the same person right now as who she was 48 hours ago?

Regardless, Xuelan wasn't going to give her ex-boyfriend the luxury of her cooperation. Even if he now owned her body, she refused to give him her heart. He could take it by force, but it wouldn't be the same.

She stared at him silently.

Kien sighed, and then sat down on the floor cross-legged so that he was level with her eyes.

"Look, Xue. I know you probably can't forgive me, but I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do. You were the only person I could think of who I thought might possibly enjoy this."

"Enjoy this? What the fuck?"

"You're a masochist. Unless you magically stopped being one in the six years we were apart."

"You'd rather rape your ex-girlfriend than random strangers? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I have a conscience, Xue. Maybe I'm messed up in the head for getting off on a woman's tears, but based on what I remember, you're at least equally as broken as me. This is why BDSM exists. We can satisfy each other's urges when ordinary people would look at everything we do in horror. But I can't fuck innocent strangers like that and still feel good about myself."

"BDSM isn't rape. A sexual fantasy isn't rape. Maybe I'm a little masochistic, but that doesn't mean I _want_ to be raped."

"I know. I know. I'm sorry. Once I summoned you, it was a one way street. We couldn't stop the ritual halfway through."

"You raped me, Kien. You _know_ my hard limits and blew straight past them."

"I'm sorry."

"Saying sorry doesn't make rape feel any better."

"Xue. I can't take back the mistakes I made, but I want to try my best to make our future better. We can turn this _into_ BDSM. All of this can be 100% consensual moving forward."

The black-haired asian suddenly laughed out loud.

"Consensual?" 

There was almost a derisive sneer in her voice.

"Is that how it works now? Step 1, magically enslave the girl while she's screaming no. Step 2, ask her to consent to all your future sick perversions? Step 3, profit?"

"Xue, please."

"No, I won't do it. I won't give you that satisfaction. Go fuck someone else."

"There isn't anyone else I can turn to."

"What? You think raping other girls is unpleasant? Oh? Too bad, boohoo. Looks like you don't have consent from me. You're stuck now, aren't you? You're a rapist either way. Don't delude yourself into thinking you're a good person. This isn't BDSM. You're not a Dom. You aren't an ordinary sadist with a rapeplay kink. In truth, you like genuine rape and you like torturing screaming women. Now you've done it for real, and you jerked off while doing it. Kien, you belong behind prison bars."

Kien suddenly closed his eyes and took a breath.

"No. You're right." He said.

The incubus slowly stood up.

His tall frame swayed in the room, and his golden eyes snapped open.

\+ + +

"I'm not a good person. I died and went to Hell. I've done many terrible things in my life, and I deserve to be here."

Kien's words were slow and carefully chosen.

"But you're mistaken about one thing, Xue."

He walked over to the table and started running his hands over an array of toys scattered on the wooden surface.

"I made this offer to you because I thought it'd be nice if you could get some pleasure out of this arrangement. I thought we were friends, you know? I miss the days when we used to date. It was the least I could do for your sake."

He picked up a coil of vine-like rope that was lined with rough thorns.

"But if you'd rather choose the painful route, I have absolutely no problems with that. In fact..."

A small and frightening smile slowly stretched over the incubus's face.

"Truthfully, I do get rock hard thinking about fucking you without your consent. If I'm honest with my desires, I just love the way your voice sings when you scream."

He bit his lips softly, as if trying to resist a particularly nasty urge.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to tell me to abandon all my morals? Because if so, I'm not sure if there's any turning back."

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief disclaimer that sadism and masochism is extremely diverse. Not all sadists find tearful women arousing (and in fact, probably only a minority), and not all masochists like pain. Kien's and Xue's words are definitely not a reflection of all sadists/masochists, and many of us find wildly different things to be turn-ons or turn-offs.  
> ^Just addressing a comment I got from a reader.


	8. Convince me

Xuelan couldn't answer that question.

Due to her pride, she compulsively wanted to screw everything and spit in her ex-boyfriend’s face. However, the rational part of her brain was also aware of the gravity of his words. Kien was at a critical juncture. Deep down inside, Xuelan knew that the incubus hadn't yet lost all his morals or humanity. She recognized that he was trying — albeit struggling — but still trying to be a good person.

He had urges to do unthinkable sadistic things, but he was stopping himself from his worst impulses.

He still felt remorse, guilt, and responsibility.

If he gave up on morality, then Kien would truly degenerate into a fully-fledged demon. Animalistic by nature, the incubus would compulsively hunt and rape and torture and feed on indiscriminate victims until they either broke or died. There wouldn't be any restraint, and he'd eventually be no different from the zillions of other carnal monsters that were part of Hell's infernal landscape. 

Not even considering her own fate... which would undoubtedly be miserable in that situation... this wasn't something that she could brush off lightly.

She couldn't respond to his question.

Xuelan looked down at her hands, and then slowly back up.

"Convince me." She suddenly said out of the blue.

Kien blinked.

"Convince you to what?"

"I want you to convince me to give you my consent."

The incubus stared at her.

"I don't trust you now. Consent is a feeling based on trust. I can't just suddenly decide to change how I feel about you. If you want me to trust you enough to submit to you, then earn it."

"You're willing to try trusting me again?" He looked incredulous.

"That depends on you."

Xuelan's eyes were narrow, dark, and gloomy.

"You know that I need sex in order to survive, Xue. I will need to take it from you whether you consent or not."

"Then take it from me. You own my body, and I can't stop you from raping me in the first place. I won't enjoy it, though."

"Why shouldn't I re-wire your brain and body so that you automatically enjoy everything I do to you?"

"I don't know. You tell me, Kien. Why haven't you done it already?"

The young woman's voice was blank and distant, almost as cold as ice.

Speaking about identity death was a grim subject. To some regard, the collar around her neck was like a figurative rope that was slowly strangling her. Xuelan was an individual. She was applying to medical school. She liked to write a little and she enjoyed the outdoors. She had always been an introvert, but she was independent. In the past, she often used to drive from UNLV1 to Zion National Park2, where she'd spend a weekend sitting on a trail with a book open in her lap or reviewing her class notes over a lonely yet beautiful panorama of natural rock chasms.

What if all of that disappeared?

The incubus was silent as he stared at her.

Then he sighed and sat down on a chair.

"Come here." He said.

Xuelan looked at him. It wasn't an 【 _Order_ 】 because she didn't feel herself being forced to move. He had spoken it like a command, but the current situation made it more like a request. He was giving her the opportunity to refuse, or to turn away from him if she wished.

She stared at him without moving for a while.

Then she slowly stood up and walked over to him.

She stopped in front of him.

"Kneel. And turn around."

She paused.

Xuelan recognized what he was trying to do.

She was familiar with this type of scene, and she had seen many Doms open with this type of pattern before. It was almost ironic. Kien was trying to roleplay BDSM. Xuelan was already cursed to be his eternal sex slave, and he could easily force her to do anything he desired. However, the incubus was almost pretending as if she could still refuse or tap-out with a safeword.

Everything was backwards.

It was horribly ironic.

She slowly knelt in front of him and hesitantly turned around.

She wondered if she should be regretting this.

"Give me your hands."

Xuelan took a deep breath. She knew perfectly well what was coming next.

The black-haired girl clasped her hands behind her back and looked away. Xuelan felt him winding the thorn-covered vine over her wrists, and the spiked pricks dug into her skin. The tips were pointy, but not sharp. They did not draw blood, and they felt more like plastic studs tightening around her flesh. Of course, it definitely hurt, but the pain was more akin to kneeling on grains of rice.

The pace of her breathing gradually grew shallower and tight. 

It hurt.

"You're quite complacent about barbed rope, aren't you Xue? Normal people would definitely protest about this."

Xuelan didn't respond, and she only closed her eyes.

"These are the vines of the Weeping Bell plant, a carnivorous tentacle monster that can be found in the forests of Hell." Kien explained. "I've removed the spines and blunted the thorns, but ordinarily they're sharp enough to make someone bleed. As you might imagine, it's exquisitely painful to be caught by one, and they slowly constrict and suffocate their prey."

Xuelan stiffened.

She hadn't known that Kien had gone through the effort to soften each thorn of this sadistic length of rope.

The incubus suddenly pulled her underneath the table with a jerk.

She wobbled on her knees until she regained her balance. Already, they were starting to feel bruised on the rough wooden floor, but her attention was quickly drawn to the fact that her face was basically right in front of her ex-boyfriend's crotch. Xuelan was kneeling naked underneath the table with her wrists tied behind her back, and she could clearly see an enormous tent in his pants.

The message definitely couldn't be any clearer.

The incubus slowly stroked her hair.

"Open up for me, Xue," he said softly.

Xuelan felt very conflicted.

She felt a very warm and damp feeling in between her crotch, and it would be a lie to say that this didn't turn her on. Somehow, she suddenly hated how her body was naturally like this. Why couldn't she just be a normal person? Why was she aroused by the idea of being mistreated and hurt? Xuelan was only seven or eight years old when the notion of being tied up first enraptured her, and she hadn't even known that BDSM existed back then. In those years, she had been terribly confused about why she would ever want something that was so clearly bad for her.

Kien was right when he said that she was equally messed up as him.

In fact, this shared similarity was one of the main reasons why they had dated online six years ago. Even though they weren't in an actual D/s relationship, they used to send each other stories that they liked, and they wrote long rambling emails to each other about trivial stuff that happened during their day. Xuelan had known about his sick perversions, and likewise Kien had known about the rape fantasies that she liked to read.

Of course, fantasies were just fantasies. They were never supposed to become real.

Xuelan closed her eyes and slowly opened her mouth.

\+ + +

Something soft went in between her lips.

It was a bit stale, and it began to dissolve on her tongue.

Xuelan snapped her eyes open in confusion, and she quickly realized that Kien's fingers had just slid inside her mouth.

He had fed her a piece of bread.

She closed her mouth around the bland chunk of starch, and the incubus withdrew his hand. He went to tear off another piece, and his other hand continued petting her hair.

"Eat." He said. "I might be a demon that feeds on sex, but you still need food to function."

The girl had a slightly incredulous look in her eyes, but the incubus continued to slip pieces of bread underneath the table.

His fingers were soft, and they floated near her lips ever time he fed her a piece. Closing her mouth over his fingertips was unavoidable, and there was multiple times when she inadvertently licked a bit of his fingers while taking a piece of bread into her mouth. The benign actions were suspiciously close to sucking on his fingers, which evoked a variety of complicated emotions in Xuelan's heart.

It was vaguely humiliating yet extremely gentle.

Kien's attention gradually drifted to other things atop the table, and he continued to feed her absentmindedly with his free hand. Xuelan heard the rustle of loose papers above her, and she chewed silently as she knelt between his legs.

His raging erection was right in front of her eyes, but he did absolutely nothing.

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will you entertain my curiosity, dear readers?
> 
> Are most of you sadists or masochists? I'm curious! I was getting the impression that most of the readers were sadists who have a non-con fetish, but by any chance could I be wrong? Where are my fellow masochists? 
> 
> @.@ ...Okay, yes, I know. I'm ashamed. I'm often afraid of writing something that everyone will think is way too hardcore, and then end up judged for being a huge pervert of astronomical proportions. Does anyone else ever struggle with this?


	9. Just give me the damn manual

Xuelan shifted on her knees in an effort to get more comfortable underneath the table despite her bound arms. Kien was stroking her head affectionately as if she was a pet cat, which altogether wouldn't have felt that bad if it weren't for the fact that there were bitter thorns digging into her skin. The simultaneous contradiction of these two paradoxical elements naturally made her emotions very complicated.

Conflicted. Her feelings were always conflicted.

Was this really okay? Somehow, it felt like she had barely won anything at all. Her ex-boyfriend seemed perfectly content to have her in between his legs, even though he hadn't explicitly asked her to suck him off. Xuelan had basically spent the past half-hour screaming at him for raping her, and now he finally wasn't doing anything _'bad'_. However, being made to kneel underneath a table hardly felt like a victory.

If your eternal owner was a sadist and a genuine psychopath, how much could you push your luck?

Was he actually starting to become nicer, or was this only a temporary reprieve based on his current unpredictable whim?

"Status." 

She heard Kien say above her.

Although she had no way of seeing what was going on, it was fairly easy to infer that he was doing something administrative-related. Based on various bits of context clues that she had gathered so far, it seemed like this underworld shared many similarities with a typical Japanese isekai novel. Apparently, there was even a 【 Status 】 menu and level system.

Truthfully, Xuelan thought this was strange. What on Earth had happened to Dante's _Inferno_ , Hades and Tartarus in Greek mythology, or the Sixteen Narakas in the Buddhist tradition? An isekai-style hell felt a blatantly anachronistic, as if someone had taken a particle accelerator to the Stone Age. Xuelan could only hypothesize that this place must have been recently devised by an unnamed lazy divine entity who clearly plagiarized from Japanese light novels.

In Chinese folk religion, it was said that there were 12,800 different hells underneath the Earth's surface. Perhaps this many-worlds interpretation of reality held merit, and maybe there were a lot of different metaphysical places that a person could go after they died.

In either case, Xuelan could only keep playing with the strange hand of cards that she had been dealt.

"Status." Xuelan whispered quietly, copying her ex-boyfriend, half-expecting to see a floating screen pop up in front of her.

However, nothing happened.

She blinked a few times in confusion, but then there was a soft chuckle from above her.

Kien rubbed her hair and smirked at her.

"Slave Status." He spoke self-assuredly, as if to mock her helplessness.

A few moments later, there was another flash of light and his hands started swiping at something in the air.

Xuelan immediately frowned.

This wasn't fair! 

"Let me see!" She protested from underneath the table.

She obviously wanted to take a look at her own status screen.

The incubus promptly booped her on the nose with the his hand.

"Nope. Not today."

"Why not?!"

A shred of suspicion suddenly rose up in Xuelan's thoughts. Was there something he didn't want her to see?

"Convince me." Kien said, almost jokingly.

The frown on Xuelan's face turned even uglier. She did not appreciate having her own words turned on her.

"You're hiding something from me," she accused him.

"I don't want you to worry about it right now," he responded. "You've been through a lot today, so take it easy. We can talk about it later when you're ready for it."

"If it has something to do with me, then I want to know about it now."

"Hm..."

The incubus suddenly reached underneath the table and picked up the young woman underneath her arms. While her legs flailed, he turned her around mid-air so she could also see the table and plopped her right on top his lap. Unfortunately, Xuelan was completely nude, and she immediately yelped when she felt his sizable erection conspicuously pressing up against her private place.

In the meantime, he simultaneously shut off her status screen before Xuelan could get a close look at it.

She glared at the perverted bastard.

Clearly, he wasn't mature enough to stop rubbing his dick in her face.

Or well, in this case, it wasn't exactly her face...

"Mind if I dry hump you?" He asked casually.

"Absolutely not." Xuelan responded instantaneously.

"Damn." He spoke playfully with pretend disappointment, and did not press the topic any further.

In fact, he kept his lap perfectly still and did not move his lower body a single inch. Instead, Xuelan was left squirming, mostly trying to shift her position so that her labia was _not_ directly on top of that pointy tent.

...Fuck, now he was pretending to act like her boyfriend.

She had to stay on guard so she didn't get swept up by his deceptive pace.

Kien acted oblivious as he smoothly reached his long arms around her shoulders, effectively hugging her in his lap. In the meantime, he slid his floating screen in front of Xuelan.

\+ + +

"I'm assuming you'd like a quick rundown of the situation, Xue?"

"...Yes." She squirmed uncomfortably, unable to escape from the erection pressing up on her leg. She tried to ignore it to the best of her ability. "I would appreciate it. How long have you been here before me, by the way?"

"Only a week. It kind of sucked."

"...Uh, yeah, I guess that's what you'd expect from Hell..."

Knowing Kien's regular conversational habits, Xuelan figured that ' _kind of sucked_ ' was probably an understatement...

The incubus continued to stretch the transparent screen of light larger. The floating surface was suspiciously like a holographic computer monitor, and it currently displayed a large map of squiggly continents and shapes.

"So this is a map."

"Uh-huh."

"Right now, we're in Hell. Bad people come here when they die."

"...Right."

"Basically, it's good if I kill people and bad if I get killed by someone else."

"..."

"And if I die, you're stuck with me. So it's better if you try to make sure I don't die."

"...Are you screwing with me, Kien?"

"Also, an important thing to remember is that you're basically immortal, so if you get caught by a bad thing you can expect it to hurt for a really really really long time. In other words, it's a bad idea to walk into a tentacle monster just because you're curious about what it feels like, since I figure that's something a masochist would probably do."

"Kien, can you just give me the manual so I can read it?"

"What? I'm trying to keep things simple for you."

"You suck at explaining things, Kien. It's faster if I just read it."

"There's gaming jargon, and I know you don't play video games, so it might be hard for you to understand the terminology."

"......"

"What? Why do you look so annoyed at me?"

"Just give me the damn manual, Kien."

\+ + +

A short while of bickering later, Xuelan finally managed to convince her asshole of an ex-boyfriend to leave his status screen open so that she could scroll through it. Of course, she hadn't been able to obtain it for free, and his final condition was that he would finger her pussy the entire time she was reading the screen (...what a pervert).

The other condition was that he'd turn off the monitor as soon as she succumbed to an orgasm.

In other words, Xuelan obtained the following (boring) information dump thanks to her herculean effort resisting a sadist's sexual torment... which is graciously sanitized here for the reader's convenience.

The menu screen had multiple tabs, which unfortunately she had to poke at with her nose since the idiot refused to untie her.

It took Xuelan several tries before she managed to navigate to the Encyclopedia tab.

This isekai universe was known as Hell. It consisted of nine separate worlds, each of which corresponded to a "Level" of Hell. The First Level was the most comfortable world, and its environment was very similar to Earth. However, each subsequent level was worse and worse. The worlds were progressively more barren, diabolical, and horrific, until finally the Ninth Level at the bottom was nothing but an endless sea of burning hellfire.

If a demon was killed in Hell, they descended a level. The Ninth Level was a permanent final destination, it was impossible for a demon to escape the eternal burning flames if they ever landed there.

Each of Hell's levels (except the Ninth) had a fixed maximum population pre-ordained by the universe. However, there were constantly new souls arriving in Hell, which meant that most levels were perpetually overpopulated. On Walpurgisnacht of every year, the universe would reorder all the demons in Hell and bump any excess demons downwards to lower levels to maintain the population limit of each world.

The system for determining which demons ascended or descended was based upon the total number of "Infernal Marks" that a demon possessed. Each demon arrived in Hell with nine marks, and the only method to gain more was to coerce another demon to surrender theirs. Typically, this was done by defeating another demon and creatively torturing them until they begged for mercy.

Generally speaking, demons with the fewest Infernal Marks were sent downwards to the lower levels on the annual Walpurgisnacht. Losing all of one's marks was equivalent to a direct ticket to the endless burning agony of the Ninth Level.

Summarily, it was a diabolical and hellish system that guaranteed that demons would torment each other in the underworld in order to stay afloat.

It was sink or swim, torment or be tormented.

...and that was pretty much as far as Xuelan got before she became slightly too distracted to read anything else.

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be perfectly honest, the real reason why Xuelan doesn't get to see her status screen was because I (the author) am too lazy to write a LitRPG. Convenient, right? I don't have to spend all that time thinking about stats and skills and equipment...
> 
> I hope this chapter didn't come out too strange, especially with the comedic tilt, fourth wall break, and dreaded info dump. Outside of this particular story, I mainly write fluff, so a relaxed atmosphere is my typical bread and butter... It's not too out of place, is it?


	10. A fuzzy dream

Xuelan had a dream.

It was a fuzzy dream, and she couldn't remember it very clearly.

Her knees were spread apart with black cords that were anchored to opposite sides of the mattress. Her arms were in some kind of armbinder-like restraint, and the rope dangling at the end was pulled up harshly and tied to the headboard of the bed. It was a basically a kneeling strappado, and the natural dynamics of her joints forced her upper chest down into the bed with her ass raised uncomfortably high in the air.

It was a stressful position, but it was impossible for her dream self to complain.

As usual, she was blindfolded and gagged. Her wailing moans were muffled as her assaulter pounded her from behind.

He was really quite ruthless, occasionally slapping her butt and yanking on her hair until she squealed and sputtered into foreign object that was trapped in her mouth.

His powerful thrusts were rough and never-ending... that insatiable incubus shot his seed into her multiple times... he never grew tired... and kept her pussy overflowing with cum... one ejaculation after the next... followed by the next...

It was impossible to know exactly how long he kept going... she thought she was going to die... 

Lost in timeless limbo... a hazy blur of disorienting lust and pleasure and pain...

\+ + +

Xuelan woke up warm and in total bliss.

She was enveloped in the cozy embrace of her partner, which felt luxurious if mainly for the fact that snuggles were wonderful. It was absolutely heavenly to feel his body like a radiator, curled up around the curves of her body like a big spoon. They were underneath the blanket, which honestly was a bit threadbare and ragged, but Xuelan didn't care about the poor quality of the bedding.

The feeling of his hot skin against hers was amazing. She realized at this point that perhaps incubi really did have a warmer body temperature than humans, and maybe she wasn't imagining it when she thought his cock was burning up inside of her...

...Wait, cock?

Why was she thinking about cock?

Xuelan could only faintly recall the fact that she had dreamt about something pleasant, but like with many dreams, the details were rapidly slipping from her mind. She had never been the kind of person to remember her dreams very well, and she never paid much attention to them. After all, dreams were totally harmless. As a firm believer in modern technology, Xuelan was not superstitious, and she ordinarily considered things like astrology or dream divination to be total pseudo-science. Fixating on the dreamworld was a total waste of time.

In either case, the trivial subject matter only crossed her mind for an instant before Xuelan's attention was distracted by more pressing issues.

As the young woman slowly shifted in bed, she realized that she was tied up.

Ah... right, Xuelan had almost forgotten.

Before they had gone to bed, Kien had released the barbed rope from her arms. The girl had been very thankful for this, because it definitely would have hurt horribly if she was forced to keep it on all night.

However, the incubus did not let her off so easily.

He made her choose from a selection of different restraints to sleep with, and insisted that if she didn't pick one herself, then he would choose the cruelest one he could think of. Ultimately, Xuelan shyly picked the armbinder, even though she pretended to be unhappy with it.

Although it was something that she would never admit out loud, Xuelan practiced a lot self-bondage in college. It was common for her to tie her own hands together before going to bed, and she liked the relaxing feeling of being bound. As a closet masochist who had never practiced BDSM with a partner in real life, she incidentally had many years of self-bondage experience. In fact, she kept a box of toys hidden behind her stack of old textbooks, a majority of which she had accumulated over the years. She had a good feel for lots of different restraints, and she generally preferred softer and more comfortable ones that she could sleep in without killing her wrists. For instance, metal handcuffs were horrible and they chafed her skin. Armbinders were generally made of softer textiles, which seemed manageable. However, it was nigh impossible for a single person to put an armbinder on themselves, which meant that Xuelan had never actually worn one herself. Thus, her curiosity was also a component of why she made that particular choice.

Xuelan wiggled over to the side, sleepily testing the limits of the bonds and secretly enjoying how secure it felt.

The armbinder was made out of some kind of mysterious material that Xuelan couldn't quite place. It wasn't quite leather or latex, and the seamless shadowy black fabric was the same color as her collar. The material was incredibly strong, but also snug, comfortable, unobtrusive, and perfectly sized for her body proportions. In fact, a majority of toys Kien that used on her were made of the same versatile shadowy material, which made her wonder if they were somehow magical constructs that were an inherent feature of her 'slave' class.

On Earth, BDSM gear could get quite expensive. Kien kept pulling new toys and restraints out of thin air, and it was unlikely that he could actually afford buying such an extensive collection. Xuelan's best guess was that manipulating the shadows into lewd shapes was a special kind of a skill, although she couldn't help but wonder if there were other practical uses.

Like, if you could make a dildo, did that mean you could make a sword?

How strong was it actually? If they could form unbreakable chains, could it be reshaped into armor?

Xuelan wanted to test a lot of things...

Although, it was a bit annoying that the incubus was too much of a pervert. He seemed to turn everything that she wanted into a sex game, which was already getting tiresome even though she had only dealt it for one day. Xuelan started to feel a headache coming thinking about another whole day of bickering with her ex-boyfriend... 

\+ + +

Kien was awoken by Xuelan's weak struggling in the armbinder.

He was practically glowing, and he seemed to be in a weirdly good mood.

"Good morning Xue! I hope you slept well."

The incubus immediately rolled over towards her and hugged her tightly in the midsection, incidentally groping her breasts along the way 'by accident'.

She frowned at him.

"...You're way too happy for it to be morning, Kien..."

"I'm just so happy to finally have you in my arms. After all these years online, we're finally together in person."

"...I need a coffee..."

"Unfortunately, there's no coffee in Hell. Oh, but morning sex is a great substitute. It's a stimulant."

Xuelan groaned and wanted to kill herself.

Someone needed to gag this incubus to shut him up. His jokes were terrible, and she was starting to doubt whether it was actually possible to live with this guy for the rest of eternity. Out of all people to be enslaved to, why couldn't she end up with someone better than this idiot?

She struggled to escape from Kien's arms and pushed herself up onto her knees.

But then she felt something sticky trickling down her thigh.

...Huh?

It was... semen?

But... she had no memory of this?

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt like this chapter was odd. The main focus was on the psychological dream element, but there are other things. One of the challenges of writing this story is that I my headspace keeps floating in between consensual and non-consensual places, and I worry about it being inconsistent.
> 
> For instance, I usually get my ideas for the next chapter overnight. By the time I wake up in the morning, I often have a good idea about what I'm writing.
> 
> The problem is that the content of my fantasies (which heavily influence the lewd stuff in this story) fluctuates heavily from day to day... if I'm feeling dark, it turns out dark, and if I'm feeling fluffy, it turns out fluffy... added on top of this, I live with my fiance so I have a strong bias towards playful sexual teasing.
> 
> It's convenient that Xuelan and Kien are ex-significant others, but I worry about them seeming too happy with each other (since I basically just project my current mood onto the characters...). In either case, I don't know if it's working...


	11. Grinding EXP

Xuelan stiffened all of a sudden.

There was really only one interpretation for semen dripping out of her pussy...

Kien seemed oblivious to Xuelan's discomfort, and he hummed to himself cheerfully as he got out of bed in all of his nude glory. His muscular back was covered with an enormous array of overlaying tattoos, which was really breathtaking to look at, but Xuelan's thoughts were spinning too fast to really admire the demon's sculpted frame.

He didn't _look_ like a rapist.

Her ex-boyfriend was kind of gentle and spacey — the type of big guy who was cute because he often looked like he was daydreaming. In friendly spaces, he was very expressive, and high school Xuelan always enjoyed watching the dynamic shifts in his emotions from afar. One day, he could be playful like a big cat, but on another day he could be brooding like a cumulonimbus cloud. It was often hard to tell what he was really thinking. Xuelan always thought of him as a big fluffy tiger yawning underneath the hot summer sun — someone that you wanted to hug because he looked so fluffy and defenseless, yet simultaneously be afraid to approach because maybe he'd lash out without warning.

On the BDSM roleplaying forum where Xuelan first met him, he was always casual, funny, and ridiculously nice when out-of-character. He always made her feel comfortable and safe. However, a switch would flick whenever he went in-character, and then he'd transform into this frightening and sadistic fantasy Dom who could instantly make her wet.

However, it never lasted more than a short scene.

Most of the time, he was just a nice guy who was fun to talk to. 

In high school, they had dated online as a boyfriend-girlfriend couple, and they weren't in a master-slave relationship. 

Thoughts swirled in Xuelan's head.

Had he... raped her while she was asleep?

Why was he acting... so normal?

"Kien..." Xuelan's voice was hesitant. "Did you do something to me last night?"

She felt a bit disturbed by the idea of being unconscious during his sexual perversions.

"Yup."

"..."

He didn't even deny it.

"Why?"

"What do you mean by why? Why wouldn't I?"

Xuelan felt an uncomfortable knot forming in her stomach. She felt deeply wronged by this response, somehow.

"I thought you said you cared about my consent."

"I do care. When you're awake, that is."

"..."

"I mean, I have to fuck you at some point. I thought you'd appreciate it if you didn't have to experience or remember it."

"I mean..."

"To be honest, you were really responsive last night, and it was nice. You have rape fantasies, don't you? It appears that you don't like the idea of rape in real life. However, when it's a dream, you seem to enjoy it and like it a lot. Logically, it just seems like it works out better for both of us if we do it while you're asleep."

"But still..."

"Besides, it only takes a bit of benign mind magic to give your brain the illusion that you're dreaming, especially when you're already sleeping. It's not a serious modification at all, so you can rest assured that I'm not playing with the core personality of your soul or anything drastic like that."

"I don't really like the idea of my mind being manipulated..."

Xuelan felt a little sick.

Was it seriously _that_ easy for him to do something so twisted like that? 

The gravity of her situation hadn't quite sunk in with her yesterday. The frightening amount of absolute control that the incubus held over her was almost beyond the level that she could comprehend, and she had previously been caught up with the naive illusion that it was possible for her to have a normal relationship with her ex-boyfriend.

To see him use his powers on her so trivially... Xuelan felt like her worldview was being wrenched apart.

Absolutely nothing was safe from that psychopath, not even her own thoughts...

"If you hate the illusion of a dream so much, I can also use a sleeping spell to stop you from waking up. Honestly though, I'd rather not, since it's a bit boring to fuck an unresponsive fish. However, I'll take that over nothing..."

All of this was so messed up...

She never imagined that she'd ever have to deal with such distorted questions from her rapist.

"Anyhow Xue. Awake or asleep? Which one do you prefer?"

Her shoulders trembled. Xuelan didn't have an answer for that. She honestly didn't know, and she had never even thought about her sexuality in such confusing ways. Was rape better inside a fantasy dream? What if the dream was real? Why did she enjoy it in a dream but not in person? Was there something inherently different about a dream? Perhaps she subconsciously knew she had control inside a dream? Or perhaps it was her state of mind? But she was also a bit freaked out by the fact that she didn't remember anything from her dreams...

"Neither!" Xuelan suddenly blurted out. "I don't want either!"

Her mind was spinning and it was too hard to choose between two terrible options. In the end, she voiced the only feeling that she was sure about inside her heart. She did not want to be forced against her will, whether she was conscious or not.

The incubus suddenly stopped.

He was getting dressed, and he was about to pull his cloak over his shoulders.

However, his hands paused in mid-air, and a deep frown appeared on his face.

\+ + +

He suddenly approached the bed, where Xuelan was sitting on her side with the armbinder still trapping her arms. She looked a little distressed and a bit upset, and the girl was clearly unhappy due to this revelation about their nighttime activities. The mood wasn't sexual at all, so the bondage looked uncomfortable rather than sensual.

His boots stopped right in front of the mattress, and his heavy footsteps on the floorboard were conspicuous.

"I think you're getting a little spoiled," he said dryly.

Xuelan suddenly felt frightened. The look in his eyes had changed, and he had transformed into a hunter eyeing fresh livestock.

"Maybe you need a little reminder about the current reality of our situation."

He reached forward with his hand and stroked Xuelan's face, which now felt creepy and disgusting.

"I like you, so it's nice if we have consensual sex. However..."

He slowly pushed Xuelan backwards until her shoulder blades was flat against the mattress, and he ran his fingers down her thighs. A black shadowy substance immediately started to wind around her folded legs, trapping them tightly into a sturdy frogtie. 

"I'm an incubus, and I can only gain EXP from sexual energy."

"...I know... Kien. You told me. You need sex in order to survive."

The woman was apprehensive. Why was he tying her up more? 

"I believe in hard work for good results. I know you're a hard worker too, since you were applying to medical school."

"What are you talking about?"

"This is an isekai universe, so you'll work hard, right? Xue?"

The incubus's hand went to Xuelan's collar. His movements were tender and affectionate, and a long black chain materialized out of thin air. It was anchored to the bed, meaning that she wouldn't be traveling very far even if she somehow managed to roll herself off the bed.

"I'm not afraid of blood. You said that I was immortal, right? Take out me with you, and I'll figure out some way to be useful in a fight. I know how to throw a punch. I'm not... a damsel in distress... You don't have to leave me behind in the bedroom. Tying me like this unnecessary. I'm not going anywhere. I won't try to escape."

"Unfortunately, we'll have to check out of the inn tomorrow, and I don't want to waste all that gold spent on a private room."

"What?"

Xuelan had no idea what the incubus was rambling on about.

"Today, you're going to grind some EXP for me."

A strange black object materialized in Kien's hand. It had runic sigils and a wide curved base. 

It was a butterfly vibrator, with a curved knob on the inside, ribbed protrusions near the top, and a flat exterior surface. The toy was meant to be worn on the pussy, where it could stimulate a woman's clitoris and G-spot at the same time.

The incubus slowly inserted it into Xuelan's entrance, wiggling it slightly to get it in the right position. Black shadowy tendrils immediately snaked around her hips, holding the device in place so that it couldn't be displaced no matter how hard the girl tried to force the intrusion out.

"Did you know, Xue? You are linked to me, so your pleasure counts as my nourishment. I hope you can help me level up a bit."

"..."

Fuck.

How did she not anticipate this?

"Have a nice day. I'll come back to check on you in the evening." Kien's voice was unsympathetic.

He stood up and walked towards the door.

And then the 【 _Training Mode_ 】 started.

∎


	12. Overstimulation

Within five or ten minutes, Xuelan was 99% positive that Kien was angry at her.

This wasn't intended to be pleasurable.

It was definitely much more of a punishment.

The incubus's message was obvious: _'If you don't want to be raped by me, then can you endure a sex machine?'_

It made Xuelan so upset, and the unfairness of all this made her hate this despicable universe even further. That man hadn't even been the one that was suffering, yet it had been so trivial for him to condemn her to hours of crazy sexual torture at the mere drop of a dime. All she had said was that she didn't want to be raped while awake or asleep, yet somehow the psychopath was unhappy about her response... and unreasonably determined that she needed to be punished for it.

She wished that there was somehow a way to make him learn what this _felt_ like, helplessly tied and forced to endure hours of nonstop overstimulation of her most sensitive organs to the point that she was basically crying from numbness and pain.

These types of excessive punishments were definitely more of a sadist's fantasy. Xuelan doubted whether there were actually masochists who genuinely found this kind of torture appealing, aside from in fiction. Without any breaks to rest, a strong vibrator could rapidly overshoot pleasure and transform into pain, and there probably wasn't a single ordinary person in the world who could take continuous vibrations for very long. The overstimulation would just feel like pure agony.

Xuelan was both fortunate and unfortunate that a magical toy was being used on her.

She was fortunate because this device seemed to magically detect her arousal and mental state. When it sensed that the pain from overstimulation was too severe, it would automatically shut off or change to a lower speed for a brief period of respite. It also secreted some kind of aphrodisiac substance that amplified the pleasure and numbed the pain, making it more tolerable for marathon use than an ordinary "regular" vibrator.

She was unfortunate because it was merciless, and it didn't give her a single millimeter of breathing room. As soon as it judged that she was capable of handling more, it would come roaring back to life, resuming the sexual torture. The device was so well-attuned with her body that it always knew when to speed up and slow down, effectively chain-orgasming her from peak to peak in a fashion that was optimized to achieve the maximum number of orgasms per hour with her poor shuddering body.

Kien had also cruelly set her collar on 【 _Quiet_ 】 mode.

What this meant was that if Xuelan made any noise above a certain number of decibels, the collar would shock her with all her restraints, including through the piercings on the sensitive parts of her body.

The simultaneous use of the magic vibrator and the collar was a truly despicable combination, and Xuelan was forced to endure the entire ordeal in silence. Of course, that feat was nearly impossible, and the poor girl was shocked many times, sometimes in succession, since the first shriek would often trigger the next shock.

Although Xuelan was never a particularly loud woman when it came to sex, she hated this collar.

The infernal vibrator pushed her to the very limit of her sanity, and there was nothing that she wanted more than but to be able to scream bitterly into a pillow. Xuelan wanted to swear at Kien and curse him for the rest of eternity, but the forced silence was also its own form of torture. It was a thousand times worse than being gagged, since she could at least cry and wail into a regular gag, but the collar permitted none of those things without inflicting more punishment.

The entire ordeal was just unimaginably horrible... and she was already a sweaty sobbing mess in just thirty minutes...

Being forced to endure this for hours simply broke her outright.

The intensity was too much, and she fell apart into pieces.

\+ + +

The door of the room burst open.

The incubus stumbled inside and slammed it shut behind him, grabbing a wooden bar to bolt the entrance shut. He was bleeding profusely, trailing a large puddle of blood behind him, but his movements were purposeful and swift.

The first thing he did was eject an empty cartridge from the firearm he was holding, and he immediately reloaded the spare magazine with one hand.

With the muzzle aimed at the entrance, he backed off to the bed, and quickly checked on the quivering mess of a girl on the mattress. She was basically unconscious and bathed in a large mess of various fluids, with her body still convulsing periodically. 

"Bad timing." He muttered ruefully, and he remotely shut off the vibrating toy in Xuelan's pussy with a mental command.

He hadn't really intended to leave her alone for more than an hour. 

"Sorry for putting you through this. This is my fault."

Kien gritted his teeth as he focused his attention back to administering his own first aid. He craned his neck, trying to tighten an improvised bandage that was slipping around his shoulder with his teeth.

His entire left arm was missing and the stump spilling blood onto the floor.

But honestly, that was just a flesh wound.

He had much bigger problems to worry about.

He had really hoped to get at least one more quiet day with Xue, but his pursuers had picked up on their trail earlier than expected. They needed to get out, and as soon as he was done patching himself up, he planned to take the girl and run.

The incubus gently touched Xuelan's forehead. There was a faint glow of light as a mysterious power was transferred in between them.

"Only half a level..." He sounded deeply troubled, especially since the girl had been on the vibrator for far longer than he originally intended.

It wasn't enough.

It wasn't anywhere close to enough.

LVL5 was the bare minimum he needed to fulfill his end of the bargain, but there was no way of knowing he'd get the Skill that he needed on his first try. Furthermore, the EXP needed to rank up was exponential with each level, so there were diminishing returns if he always resorted to the same tactic.

The sex toy EXP farming plan was less efficient than Kien had hoped.

For everything that he had put poor Xue through, it absolutely wasn't worth it. 

Maybe it would have worked better if he had a hundred slaves hooked up on some kind of prison farm, but that type of strategy was repulsive to him. Kien did not inherently enjoy the idea of owning sex slaves, and that kind of fetish was clashed uncomfortably with his personal beliefs. On Earth, his gang regularly clashed with sex traffickers that operated out of Thailand, and he had many traumatic childhood memories of when his twin sister had been abducted and killed by those brutes.

In truth, he deeply regretted the entirety of the enslavement ceremony that he had undergone with Xue. It caused everything to start off on the wrong foot, and now she currently despised him. She would probably continue to detest him forever, and her hatred was a fitting punishment for all his sins.

He deserved it.

He recognized a terrible monster in his own nature, and he shuddered from the fact that his worst sadistic impulses were glaring right in his face. On Earth, he always used to feel disgusted at himself on the rare occasion that he indulged in pornography of those dark fantasies, but now he was the living embodiment of it. Incubi literally preyed on women for food, and the uncontrollable lust in his body was at least a hundred times stronger than what it had been when he used to be human.

Occasionally, he just couldn't think clearly, especially if his demonic body was starved for flesh. He craved his dark impulses like a drug addict that was starved for cocaine, and he lacked the self-control to renounce those sick desires. Sometimes, he even caught himself salivating over elaborate plans about how he could realize his fantasies and inflict more of those sinful passions on his helpless sex slave.

Kien hated himself. He hated his lack of willpower and his lack of strength. He was the worst kind of hypocrite.

It was horribly ironic that he became a slave-owning incubus in the afterlife, especially when he spent half of his life fighting against underground prostitution rings.

A while ago, he had naively believed that maybe Xue would be the answer to everything.

They seemed to complement each other naturally, and it was hard to not notice how their desires were perfect inverses of each other's most disturbing twisted fantasies.

But now he knew he had been horribly wrong.

He kept making mistakes.

Xue would never forgive him.

And he was plummeting deeper into the heart of darkness.

∎


	13. Healing

Xuelan slowly drifted awake to the sound of heavy rumbling.

Rumbling like a train.

The noise of spinning gears and clattering metal was deafening, and her nose was assaulted by the powerful smell of engine oil and grease. This boxcar was poorly lit, and it was too dark for human eyes to see anything. Inside the blackness, a single hanging infrared lightbulb swayed violently back and forth in the middle of the freight compartment, swinging like a pendulum and casting invisible shadows across the eerie space.

The infrared glow emitted by the lightbulb was outside of the visible spectrum, so Xuelan could not see anything other than pure darkness. Demons, however, had a greater dynamic visual range than humans, and they could see light in the ultraviolet and infrared spectrums. Xuelan had no way of knowing this at the time, but it was common for demons of this universe to keep their human livestock in dark rooms illuminated only with far-red light sources. This particular freight train was configured to carry miscellaneous cargo, and there was always the occasional slave shipment, so most of the railcars were always designed to keep human prisoners in the dark.

Xuelan's first reaction was fear.

She didn't know how she had gotten here, and she didn't know where this place was.

Her body was sore, and she barely felt like she could move any of her muscles.

But then in the next instant, she recognized a familiar smell and felt an unmistakable broad torso right in front of her face.

Right.

Of course, that would be Kien.

She was beginning to get used waking up always beside his side.

Currently, she was straddling his lap and hugging him, with her face partially smothered in his chest.

He was very comfortable to sit on, especially since his body was warm, and...

And...

Bloody?

She felt something hot and wet oozing out of his midsection.

Her body was practically soaking in it, almost as if she was swimming in a puddle of gore. Xuelan had no idea what she was touching, but it felt squishy, warm, and gooey.

_Kien—_

She was about to say, but Xuelan immediately curled over from a sudden jolt of pain.

"Nhn!" She stifled a muffled cry.

The shock collar was still active around her neck, and it had zapped her when it sensed that she was about to speak.

The sudden pain caused a rush of memories to flood into her brain. Xuelan remembered now that the incubus had previously tied her to a vibrator and forced her to orgasm for hours. She had no idea what had happened in the span of that time, but everything in her body still hurt. In fact, her tingling limbs still felt like jello, and she was too weak to even push herself up.

Irrational fear suddenly swept over her.

Xuelan's thighs began to shake uncontrollably, and spontaneous tears began to form at her eyes again. She was disconnected from her emotions, and she wasn't quite sure why her body was like this. All she knew was that she never wanted to experience anything horrible like that again, and the mere thought of being forced to orgasm continuously made her body shudder frightfully.

She didn't even care if Kien wanted to rape her every night. She'd do anything to avoid another round of vibrator torture.

The girl's shifting and disoriented movements seemed to cause the incubus to stir awake.

He slowly opened his eyes and looked at Xuelan.

There was an unblinking pair of golden pupils glowing in the darkness.

( _"Could you take your hand out of my abdominal wound? You're stirring my entrails around. It feels uncomfortable."_ )

Kien's voice suddenly appeared in her head like an airy cloud whispering in her brain.

His words were expressionless, flat, and clinically objective, almost as if he wasn't even talking about himself.

Surprised, Xuelan jerked back, withdrawing her hand from the warm place.

She hadn't realized that the incubus had the ability to use telepathy with her.

...What exactly had happened here? She was literally bathed in Kien's blood, and the massive amount of crimson was far beyond the amount that an ordinary human could lose. Of course, Kien wasn't human, but Xuelan could only imagine that it hurt a lot... assuming that he wasn't seriously injured... but even that was hard to say...

...Her hand had been literally inside of his bleeding guts...?

Xuelan stared blankly, not quite processing everything. 

How the heck was the incubus so calm about this?! How was he not dying in pain?!

_("Don't make a fuss. We are not alone. There are five other demons in this car. Potentially hostile if they realize we're different from them.")_

There was a brief tug on the leash that was chained to Xuelan's neck, as if to remind her of her position as his slave.

Xuelan immediately went still. 

She was deeply confused, but it was abundantly clear that her ex-boyfriend was in deep trouble. Even though he wasn't screaming from pain, the tone of his voice was serious and frigid, and she knew from past experience that the Kien was never like this unless the situation was absolutely critical. Xuelan considered it his 'gangster voice' from work, and it always used to scare her a little. After all, years ago, she had only been an ordinary high school student, and the ugly details of her ex-boyfriend's day job were never anything pleasant.

There was not much slack in the leash, and Kien held the chains tightly so that Xuelan couldn't even pull away a single inch from his chest. She had no choice but to continue laying against the incubus's torso, which Xuelan wasn't exactly opposed to (it felt intimate), apart from the alarming issue that the man was literally bleeding all over her.

She was slowly able to infer that they were traveling undercover.

The meaning of Kien's actions was that he wanted her to act like a real slave in the traditional stereotypical sense. It was rather self-evident that demons commonly kept slaves in this universe, and if they wanted to avoid drawing attention to themselves, Xuelan would have to adapt quickly in order to match the typical societal expectations.

Even though Xuelan hadn't yet seen any other demons interacting with their submissives, she did have a very good sense of proper slave behavior due to her online experiences with BDSM. The 24-year-old was familiar with all the most common rules and protocols, although she had intentionally disregarded these things when her ex-boyfriend forcibly enslaved her when he summoned her into this hellish world.

Kien had never asked her to refer to him as 'Master' or 'Sir', and likewise Xuelan had zero intentions of doing so unless he forced her to. Xuelan was perfectly aware that their interpersonal dynamics were not conventional, and it was conspicuously obvious that Kien wasn't exactly treating her as a slave. Both of them were well-versed in BDSM and both of them knew how sex slaves were supposed to behave, yet the deliberate omission of these D/s aspects spoke volumes about their fragile and complicated relationship.

Although Xuelan resented many aspects of being raped and forced against her will, she was also objectively aware of the fact that there were millions of ways that her current situation could have been far worse. Unlike the majority of abduction/slavery porn novels that she used to read on the Internet, Kien had never given her any strict rules to follow, he wasn't "training" her to be a mindless slave, and he hadn't tried to "break her in" to shatter every last shred of resistance that a freshly kidnapped victim might have.

And Xuelan genuinely respected that and quietly noted it, even though she never said anything about it.

She willing to cooperate with acting out the role of an obedient slave, at least for now.

Both of their interests aligned, and she also didn't want to encounter any homicidal monsters either.

_("I'm going to use you to heal myself. You may not like it, so I'm sorry.")_

Without waiting for a response, the incubus shifted the girl slightly on his lap, and slowly slid his dick into her warm hole. He did not give an opportunity for Xuelan to refuse, although he rarely gave her a choice with these things anyways.

Xuelan clenched tightly for a moment when she realized what he was doing. Her bruised pussy was painful and numb, and it caused her to whimper quietly as he slid in, but she slowly relaxed her pelvic muscles to accommodate his girth. Kien was moving very slowly, almost leisurely, and his male organ glided in and out of her. He would pause almost every stroke, resting inside for dozens of seconds as his male organ filled her up entirely. His cock would twitch and throb inside of her body, but overall he would mostly just stay in place with a rare thrust every minute or so.

It wasn't really fucking, frankly. She was just quietly sitting on top of him, feeling the hot warmth of his pulsating cock inside of her, while both of them stayed connected at their most intimate places inside this noisy dark train car.

There was a faint perceivable glow around the incubus's body.

...He was using her body as a magical healing source... like a living recovery item... and she wasn't allowed to refuse...

...But... it didn't feel bad...

...She... wouldn't mind staying here, to be honest.

 _("Sorry.")_ Kien repeated, sitting awkwardly.

Xuelan didn't say anything.

_("It might take an hour or so. My injuries are severe.")_

She just leaned against Kien's chest and waited quietly as the train rumbled away.

She closed her eyes, continuing to bear the residual aching pain in her abused loins.

She didn't say anything.

∎


	14. It’s noisy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Torture. Basically, some of the fucked up parts of this dystopia are illustrated in this chapter.

"Those damn terrorists. Pulling this out fucking hurts."

A pained angry voice floated over a short distance from the side. A clatter of metal fell to the floor as the demon cursed.

Xuelan's body stiffened on top of Kien. Although she could not see anything in this dark railcar, she was able to hear the other demons inside this small rumbling train cabin. There was the faint rustling of clothes and other equipment, as well as the rattling of some chains.

Kien did not show any sign of reacting to the other demons' conversations, and Xuelan likewise laid perfectly still. She could feel the slow rise and fall of her ex-boyfriend's chest, and Xuelan took a deep breath, trying to synchronize her own rapidly pounding heart with Kien's steady and regular heartbeat.

She listened quietly while his warm cock pulsated inside of her.

"Blast got you bad, huh? Shrapnel from the explosion?"

"Hurts like a bitch."

"Any idea about the casualty rate? I saw the entire Colosseum go up in flames."

"No idea. DuskNet is down. No reception. The South Anchor was crumbling when I started running. If the entire column goes down, the entire city could fall from the sky. I didn't feel like it was a good idea to hang around the blast site, so I hitchhiked on the first freight train out."

"Ranes and I got on at the powerplant. We only saw the second explosion."

"Damn. You think the entire city might fall? Where'd the terrorists get a bomb that big?"

"I can't believe they'd do something like that." Another demon asked. "On the day before the Festival of Kore?"

He sounded horrified, as if the bombing had occurred on the demon's equivalent of Christmas.

"The Festival is probably canceled now... right? I was hoping to get my own sex slave this year."

"I'm more worried about whether they can manage to salvage the merchandise. A year's stock of virgins are sacrificed by cultists on Earth during the Festival of Kore. It's 60% of the annual supply, and the entire incubus population thrives on this critical influx of new slaves. If they're not able to salvage the ritual, a food shortage in the next year ain't gonna to look pretty."

"Would that mean... war with the Werebeasts and Vampires? All of us thrive on human flesh."

"Someone wants to incite a war."

"No, they want a revolution. The terrorists are looking to overthrow the current ruling dynasty."

" _Black Rosary_ — have you seen their manifesto on DuskNet? They're religious fanatics. They want to ban the use of live slaves and sacrifice all freshly arrived humans for the sake of black magic while they're still pure. But even if the Great Necromancer gives us all the leftover reanimated corpses, I don't want to fuck some stale dead bodies. Necrophilia just isn't the same, you know?"

"Ugh. Disgusting. I hope the Demon King crushes those rebels. I like my female pussies warm."

"We're all incubi here, right? This means we're all on the same side. I'm Earl. Level 41."

"Arteise. Level 39."

"You can call me Ranes. I'd prefer not to state my level."

"Paranoid, huh? It's pretty safe inside the borders of the kingdom. You won't get jumped by anyone trying to steal one of your Marks. The Demon King guarantees the rule of law inside the civilized lands. Even if we're demons, anarchy isn't good for creature comforts like sewage systems, power plants, or electric lights."

"I'm not new," the incubus named Ranes snapped back angrily. "Don't make assumptions about me."

"Woah there. Easy, I'm just trying to be nice. Want me to lend you my slave? She's got a nice tight ass."

"Fuck off. I can afford to buy my own bitches."

"Suit yourself."

\+ + +

The conversation continued to drag on, and Kien also shared his name when it came to his turn in the circle.

However, he lied and said that he was Level 43, rather than admitting that he was total beginner.

Four of the demons were relatively talkative, and their conversation drifted over multiple topics. Kien was one of the quiet ones, and he remained silent for a majority of the time. The other incubi did not disturb him since he was obviously preoccupied with having a slow recovery fuck with his personal slave.

Suddenly, there was a voice that came from Xuelan's left. 

"Hey, I need to take a piss. Mind if I borrow your slave, Kien?"

The demon said it as casually as if he was merely asking to borrow the bathroom in someone's house.

Kien's golden eyes snapped open. His response was prompt and unfriendly.

"Can't you see I'm busy?"

"It'll only take a sec. If you spin her around, I can use her mouth and you don't even have to move."

"I don't like it when other people stick their pricks inside and piss all over my belongings."

There was almost a threatening growl that emerged from Kien's throat.

Xuelan's entire body went rigid when she realized they were talking about her. Fear immediately swept over her, and her arms tightened around Kien's midsection. Aside from the fact that she had zero interest in watersports, she hated the idea of anyone else using her. Kien had been her ex-boyfriend, and at least she used to find him likable and attractive. Even though Kien had completely violated her trust, taking his dick was infinitely more tolerable than being fucked by a stranger.

"Hey, I was just asking. Sharing is caring you know? Didn't an older incubus also help you out when you were new, before you got your first slave? We're all basically family. We gotta take care of each other's needs."

"I don't share." Kien's voice was adamant and final.

The demon named Earl interjected across the room.

"Don't bother with that grumpy guy, Neiel. I'm totally okay with you using my slut."

There was a quick spank on an ass and a hurried shuffling of chains.

"Thanks, man. I owe you one."

Xuelan's breathing tightened as she realized that the other demon's slave was unquestionably being used as a man's toilet. It made her feel slightly sick, thinking about how little regard these demons held for their humans. They were treated no different than objects, and everyone's attitudes seemed to regard this as totally normal. Furthermore, Xuelan was almost 100% sure that none of the slaves were here consensually, which left a sick feeling in her stomach.

While Xuelan understood that some masochists got off on urine and this type of humiliation play, this scene definitely wasn't BDSM or sexy games. All of this was too real, and it was extremely disturbing to listen to it happening right next to her. Xuelan was currently kneeling in the same room as genuine real slaves, and it frightened her to realize that she was in the midst of all these horrors.

It was real slavery. Actual fucking slavery. They didn't have safe-words, limits, or rights. Their feelings didn't matter. They were abducted from Earth and subjected to the worst nightmares of Hell, at the total mercy of unconscionable demons.

Technically, Xuelan was a real slave too, wasn't she?

She wasn't any different.

Xuelan started trembling in Kien's lap as she slowly realized this.

Kien was her Master and unconditional owner.

"Fuck! No teeth!" The demon Neiel suddenly snapped. "Where'd you train this bitch? Her technique is shit."

There was a sudden slap across the face that rang across the room, followed by a faint sobbing whimper.

"Huh. Again? That's the second time this month. This useless slut is probably due for re-training."

"No! Master! Please! It's dark and this slave couldn't see! Master's cock went in suddenly, and—"

There was a sharp crack of a whip and a shriek.

"She even talks back? Yeah... I think your slave is overdue for a refresher course, Earl." The demon Ranes joked from the side.

There was another ferocious lash of the whip that whistled through the air.

"Honestly, she was never really good. I just sent her for re-training four months ago, but the lessons never really seem to stick with this dumb bitch. Her posture always sags and she still cries when I tell her to shut up. She's sort of okay as a painslut, since she has a nice pretty scream and sensitive skin, but I don't get off on pain as much as other incubi do."

"Huh, a painslut, you say?"

"You interested, Arteise? I was going to trade her in at the Festival of Kore for a better new slave, but if you're interested in buying, I'm happy to negotiate. Whats your price range?"

"Mind if I see a demonstration first?"

"Oh, of course. Right away. 【 _Punish_ 】"

An ear-splitting and miserable scream of agony immediately erupted from the center of the rail car.

The shadowy figure convulsed on the floor, writhing as if suffering from unimaginable torture.

Xuelan couldn't see, but she didn't need to see anything to be able to imagine the excruciating pain that the female slave was experiencing. Her arms were squeezed around Kien in a death grip, and her knuckles were nearly white from how tightly she clung to her ex-boyfriend. Xuelan's fingernails inadvertently dug deep into Kien's skin, and it probably hurt, but he was motionless like a large tree.

"Was that the level 4 punishment?" The demon named Arteise asked indifferently, basically ignoring the girl's continuous screams.

"Oh, that was only level 2. She has a nice loud reaction, right? Very responsive."

The girl continued to shriek and spasm violently on the ground.

"Can I see your slave on level 6?"

"Sure."

But before they could raise the intensity, Kien's strong voice suddenly cut through the scene.

" **You two.** "

His words were cold and morbid. It oozed with a dark and oppressive aura, which was uncharacteristic of a low-level demon like himself. However, Kien had clearly put on a very convincing act, and all of the demons present mistakenly believed him to be one of the strongest in the room even though he was actually only level 2.

The two incubi tormenters suddenly stopped and turned around. The slave owner briefly disabled the punishment command in order to hear Kien's voice more clearly, and the woman's excruciating screams died down into soft sobbing whimpers.

"Yes?" Earl asked.

" **Some of us are trying to sleep. It's noisy.** "

Kien's voice was emotionless and frosty.

There was a brief silence.

"My apologies for disturbing your nap. I should have gagged my slave."

Kien said nothing.

The incubi turned back to their tortured slave and the owner produced a gag in his hand.

Xuelan buried her face in Kien's chest, trembling weakly.

She didn't want to listen to this anymore.

∎


	15. Cuddeslut

Eventually, an hour passed, and Kien was finished with healing himself.

His clothes were still bloody and there was a massive puddle of gore on the ground, but all of his wounds had sealed and he had even regrown his missing arm. Of course, by human standards, this regeneration rate was ridiculously overpowered, but demons generally had impressive vitality. It was often claimed that they were nearly immortal, in the sense that it was necessary to skewer a demon's heart with a special materials such as silver before they would truly die.

All other injuries were non-fatal, which always meant demons could suffer for an immeasurably long time with dramatic wounds. Incidentally, this meant that most weapons in the Underworld consisted of items such as silver-tipped blades or daggers coated with holy water in order to retain their effectiveness on demons.

Since he was fully healed, Kien was about to lift Xuelan's body off of his dick.

Unexpectedly though, the girl clung for dear life and refused to budge a single inch.

In truth, the demons had petrified her, and Xuelan was terrified by the prospect of being "idle". She had very quickly realized that the entire room had largely ignored her mainly because she was being "used", and there seemed to be some implicit rule of etiquette that one did not interfere with a demon's session with their slave.

However, if Kien stopped healfucking her and Xuelan was left unmolested, there was no telling when one of the other five demons would decide to come interact with her, even if it was just to use the toilet. Of course, they were unlikely to do anything if Kien didn't give them permission, but Xuelan honestly didn't even want to risk exposure with any of them.

She couldn't see any of the demons, and the entire railcar was dark. However, based on what she knew of men, they'd surely be feasting their eyes on a naked female slave in chains, quietly measuring her up to see if she suited their tastes. Some of the incubi did not have their own slaves, so it was reasonable to infer that they might even be jealous of Kien and the other slave-owning incubus. Their entire species depended on sex to level up, so an idle slave was probably analogous to wasting EXP that could otherwise be had for free.

In short, idleness was very very bad.

...Of course, Xuelan didn't know what they were actually thinking, but this was her impromptu assessment of the situation.

She clung to her ex-boyfriend tightly, not wanting him to pull out from inside of her.

_("Xue?")_

He seemed confused by her behavior.

_("I'm done already. I'm healed. You can get off now.")_

Xuelan squeezed him even tighter and hesitantly shook her head back-and-forth. She motioned refusal with the tiniest subtle movements possible because she did not want any prying eyes to notice that she was resisting. If there was one word that was taboo for slaves, Xuelan knew that 'No' was absolutely forbidden. Slaves were never allowed to refuse their masters, and a slave that disobeyed a direct order was unquestionably setting themselves up to be punished severely.

Kien went quiet for a long time.

The 24-year-old trembled faintly, but she really didn't want to get off of him.

Kien wouldn't... be upset at her... right?

The incubus did not react, and he slowly turned his head away, apparently allowing her disobedience to slide.

Xuelan sighed in relief.

\+ + +

A short while later, the door at the end of the rail car slid open, and a burst of bright light flooded in the dark space.

The train was still moving and shaking on the tracks, and someone had opened the connector between the freight cars.

Three intimidating demons outfitted in armor stepped in. They were dressed in eastern-style garments and each equipped with three swords, similar to a samurai's wakizashi, katana, and tantoo set. Long impressive crimson cloaks flapped in the wind, which streaked out of the open railcar door. At first glance, they looked like oni — the powerful demons of Japanese mythology — but then Xuelan realized that they were only wearing masks, and the long pointy horns above their head were an ornamental part of their helmets.

" **Imperial guard. Inspection.** "

The demon's voice was not loud, and in fact it was almost soft and barely above the muted volume of a whisper. However, his voice carried an incredible presence, and it seemed to exude some kind of commanding and powerful aura. Everyone instantly stopped what they were doing.

It suddenly occurred to Xuelan that this was probably some kind of skill.

Kien had also demonstrated a similar ability earlier, but Xuelan was confused. Hadn't he only been here for a week? This didn't seem to be some kind of run-off-the-mill skill, and all the demons seemed to instantly respect anyone who possessed that characteristic dominant aura. Based on her knowledge of manga and wuxia novels, it reminded her a lot of Reiatsu ("Spiritual Pressure") from _Bleach_ or Nen ("Sense") from _Hunter X Hunter_. However, this wasn't a low-level skill, and Xuelan doubted that a mere level 2 incubus could possess such an impressive ability.

Xuelan gradually realized that there was definitely something strange about her ex-boyfriend.

"We're looking for a werebeast. A black tiger. Male. Suspected terrorist."

Another one of the imperial guards added a brief and cursory explanation.

"The six of us are the only ones here. No one else passed through." Earl spoke helpfully, apparently taking the initiative to speak for the entire freight car of incubi.

"Yeah," Arteise added with a nod. "Any news from the city? How's the damage?"

" **That's classified information.** "

"No worries. We don't want any trouble. Anything we can do to help?" Earl said.

" **We need to see your Statuses.** "

"Captain, is that really necessary?" One of the subordinate guards spoke up. "There's only incubi in this car. We still have a lot of ground to search, and it's best if we don't lose any more time."

" **We will not deviate from our assigned protocol.** "

"Searching the freight trains is a dumb order from HQ though... there's no way the terrorists would have fled _towards_ the capital."

" **Even if the probability is unlikely, we will continue with our tasks.** "

Two of the junior guards looked exasperated and helpless, as if they couldn't believe that their captain was so anal about the inconsequential minor details. From their perspective, their team had definitely been assigned the 'parking lot' mission, and it was extremely unlikely that they'd encounter any kind of real excitement or danger. It wouldn't hurt to relax their guard a little, especially since they were deep inside friendly territory.

Earl gave a friendly smile to the junior guards.

"Hey, at least you're getting paid to do good work," he reassured them kindly. "It's thanks to you folks that the streets are safe."

"Yeah. I just ascended from World 5 during the last Walpurgisnacht, and the administration here on World 4 is doing a fabulous job. You can barely tell the difference from the upper worlds. The Fourth Demon King really knows how to run an empire, and it's honestly a lot more comfortable than I expected." Neiel chimed in to the conversation.

"The Wastelands are hell though."

"I mean, no shit. It's lawless out there."

"Anyhow, I don't have anything to hide. I'll show you my Status." Earl steered the conversation back on track.

"Same here. Good luck with finding the terrorist."

Each of the six incubi opened their status screens and flipped it over to the three guardsmen.

Kien wordlessly did the same. During this time, Xuelan caught a brief glance of his transparent floating window.

...It really did say Level 43 under his demographic information...

A fake Status screen?

Xuelan clearly remembered that he had told her that he was level 2... and in fact she had previously seen the real number on his Status screen with her own eyes when they were fooling around in the hotel room...

The guard captain stopped in front of Kien's spot. Xuelan stiffened as she heard the captain's boots come to a rest.

" **Your slave is unregistered. Explain yourself.** "

Kien slowly opened his golden eyes.

His dark expression was cold, and his intimidating voice was evenly matched with the guardsman.

" **I just acquired her. Out in the Wastelands.** "

The room instantly went quiet, as if Kien had said something unexpected and taboo.

" **So you killed the previous owner, then.** "

" **And so what if I have?** " Kien answered rhetorically, his eyes narrow. " **Is there a problem?** "

There was no response.

Even though frivolous murder was illegal inside the borders of the Fourth Demon King's Empire, the imperial guards could say nothing about the affairs that occurred outside of the dominion. As far as this Empire was concerned, once any demon walked in from the Wasteland, anything they were carrying on their body automatically became their rightful property, even if it was obtained through questionable and unpleasant methods.

Crimes only existed within the boundaries of the Empire.

Suddenly, Xuelan felt herself being lifted up.

Kien flipped her around and forcibly spread her legs to the audience, exposing her intimate and shameful place in plain view.

Xuelan immediately had the urge to struggle and cover herself, but she fought herself to remain still. A proper slave didn't have modesty, and it would ruin her ex-boyfriend's act if she began resisting and struggling like a wild untrained animal.

" **My slave is branded. She is my property.** "

" **So it appears.** "

There was a sighing exhale of admiration from the audience of incubi.

"Is that a soul brand?" Ranes whispered in the back. "The 【 _Absolute Submission_ 】 kind? I've never seen one before."

"That's one hell of an expensive slave for sure."

"Heh, Kien is a sneaky guy. Hiding such a treasure right in front of us, right?"

" **What kind of slave is she?** " The captain asked.

Kien's immediately responded to the question without the slightest amount of hesitation.

" **Cuddleslut.** "

He spoke with a straight face.

Xuelan's legs trembled powerfully at Kien's words. 

For some weird reason, it made her unbelievably and unfathomably happy to hear him say that. It was like the best news that she had heard in a million years, and it filled her with a stupidly irrational amount of elation and relief. Xuelan almost wanted to burst out crying.

A cuddleslut! She was a cuddeslut!

One of the junior guards looked at Kien skeptically.

"Really? You sure? If you're too soft on them, they'll start to lose discipline and fall apart on you."

" **My slave never disappoints me.** " Kien spoke with unwavering confidence.

He wrapped his arms around Xuelan's midsection and fondled her breast.

Xuelan quivered a little and practically melted into Kien's arms. She didn't completely understand why she was so happy, but Kien could grope her all day and she wouldn't care. If fact, it was even better if he kept fondling her. He should fondle her until all those stupid demons grow tired of watching and leave them alone!

The samurai-like guard had a faint look of disgust.

" **Just get your slave registered.** "

Kien nodded, shrugged, and said nothing more.

" **Team, we're finished here. Let's move on to the next car.** "

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think it's important to give credit when credit is due.  
> One of the main reasons why this story exists is because I was secretly reading @Spectacular's Rapeworld Isekai without adding it on my "normal person" reading list (I'm sure that 90% of you all follow that story already). I encountered Chloe's character in chapter one, and then immediately had something click in my brain. Oh my god, she's the party healbitch! Somehow I felt incredibly jealous of her character, not necessarily because of the isekai monster rape part, but moreso for the fact that she actually has the guts to go play DnD with a bunch of pervy guys in a basement while quietly getting off on the idea of being banged and used by her friends.
> 
> ...which is obviously something that I would never do, right?
> 
> Anyhow... 
> 
> Then I started writing a trashy fantasy and it turned into this.
> 
> It's curious how stories can exist in a dialogue, right? I think in many genres (porn in particular), nothing is truly original, and it's interesting to see how the media that we consume affects the stories that we tell. This story is absolutely an amalgamation of many people and many stories and many experiences, and it's only thanks to those combined influences that something like this pops out.


	16. Tell me in words

When the imperial guards left through the opposite end of the railcar and shut the door, everything became pitch black again.

Xuelan was left dangling in a somewhat awkwardly exposed position, while Kien continued to fondle her breasts.

...Um...

She was positive that the entire room of incubi was staring at her, and it made her deeply uncomfortable even though she couldn't see anything. Her ex-boyfriend had literally left her open for display, and he was basically masturbating her in front of an audience of sex demons. Naturally, she was extremely self-conscious about this, especially since they were terrifying monsters who had legitimately tortured a slave to an unresponsive shivering mess a short while ago.

 _("Something wrong, Xue?")_ Kien asked, his voice innocent.

His fingers started teasing her nipples, tugging on them playfully.

Ugh! This wasn't the time for this!

Wasn't their entire objective to keep a low profile and avoid drawing attention to themselves?

These incubi were dangerous! And Kien was only Level 2!

Putting on a sex show in front of these twisted sex demons was a lot like cooking a gourmet five-star meal in plain view of a pack of starving wolves. The aroma of a delicious food was bound to make them salivate, especially since a majority of the incubi clearly didn't have slaves of their own. Kien's actions were equivalent to flaunting her in their faces, and it was definitely a bad idea. Couldn't they at least do this somewhere less exposed?

However, her ex-boyfriend apparently could not care less, and he rolled atop Xuelan, trapping her underneath his powerful arms.

Xuelan felt the steel grill floor on her naked back, and it was very uncomfortable. Kien's heavy body weight pressed her down, so it was impossible for her to struggle out from underneath this impenetrable prison of muscle. She could feel his knees pressing in between her legs, slowly forcing her thighs apart in the missionary position. Them, he grabbed her wrists and pinned them helplessly above her head.

His warm breath was right against her neck, tickling her sensitive skin and sending shivers down her spine.

The girl whimpered softly and arched her back a little, suddenly gushing with arousal.

Kien couldn't have known this, but this was her favorite position to have sex on Earth. Admittedly, she did not have a ton of experience, and maybe it was boring to like missionary, but Xuelan rarely had the courage to tell her short-term partners that she was interested in bondage. Typically, she would imagine that her hands were tied above her head (even though they weren't), unable to defend herself while her partner ~~abused~~ teased her nipples and thrusted into her depths. Sometimes, she'd even bury her face underneath a pillow, fantasizing that she was blindfolded and kidnapped against her will while her date had his way with her.

In short, she was a little bit of a closet pervert. Wouldn't it be weird to tell the vanilla guy you slept with, ' _Actually, I was fantasizing that you were raping me the whole time!_ '

...Yeah, it'd be totally weird, right?

Without warning, Kien forcibly kissed her on the lips.

It was a deep kiss, and his tongue plunged deep into Xuelan's mouth.

The girl moaned involuntarily, and her entire body quivered while that wet tongue forced its way inside. Xuelan fought back with her own tongue, but it only only took a few seconds before she capitulated and submitted to the vigorous explorations of the foreign invader, which left no corner of her mouth unturned as it pillaged its newly claimed prize.

Before she knew it, Kien's cock was inside of her pelvis and he slowly moved his hips.

However, he was not rough and frenzied like the previous times he raped her. Each stroke of his shaft was long and passionate. His thrusts were like a tender lover, wanting to savor and enjoy every millimeter of her folds. He would slowly dive as deep as possible, and continue to stubbornly push for a long second despite bottoming out against her cervix, before withdrawing his glistening cock, leaving her suffer with the agony of hollow emptiness. It was very romantic, and the slow pace of each cycle was almost torture with the way it made her ache with a desperate need for more.

Xuelan felt like her brain was going crazy.

_("Do you like this, Xue?")_

She was steadily melting on the inside.

Did this count as rape?

Xuelan wasn't sure. She had no idea. She was confused.

Very, very confused.

But honestly, at this point, she didn't really care.

She'd worry about everything later.

_("If you like this, let me hear you. Tell me that you like this.")_

Xuelan whined loudly as Kien's manhood sank deep into her abdomen.

The incubus suddenly grabbed a fistful of her hair, causing Xuelan's neck to crane backwards.

_("No. Bad. Tell me in words, Xue.")_

The 24-year-old gasped and spasmed a little on Kien's cock.

She was so close!

She could feel it coming, and she was so close to reaching the peak!

"Fuck me! Fuck me, Master!" Xuelan cried out loud.

" **Cum for me, dear. You're a very good slave.** "

Xuelan immediately exploded into a powerful ground-shattering orgasm.

\+ + +

The railcar was silent for a few seconds while the black-haired girl trembled uselessly on the ground.

"So, that's a cuddleslut, huh?" One of the incubi said, having observed the entire scene.

"I think she's the happiest slave I've ever seen..."

There was a sudden yank and rattle of chains, followed by a whimper from the other female slave in the railcar.

"Hey bitch, can you do that?"

"M-Master, I-I'm sorry! I... I will try my best!" The abused slave sobbed fearfully, choking.

"What's wrong with you?! Are you useless at everything? How can it be so hard to be a cuddleslave!"

Earlier, someone had grabbed the slave and was in the middle of pounding her from behind. Her voice was broken and ragged as she tried to speak despite being used as a masturbation aid. Another one of the incubi seized her by the hair and promptly filled her mouth with his member, effectively silencing her and guaranteeing that she would not contribute anything worthwhile to the conversation. A third demon had already shot an enormous load of sperm all over her body, and a fourth was holding a cattle prod. 

"I don't think they teach the slaves how to be cuddlesluts at the training dungeon."

"Then they should add it to the curriculum! I want to buy a cuddleslut next year!"

"Um... Earl, I'm not sure if it works that way."

"What do you mean, Neiel?"

"I think... that's just the way that normal people have sex. Like, vanilla sex."

"What?"

"I mean, I'm not sure... but I've heard that sex can look like that if the girl actually likes you."

"Nonsense! My slave likes me, right? Hey painslut! Do you like me?"

He poked her mercilessly with the cattle prod.

All of them stared at the spit-roasted slave, but her eyes were tearing from a lack of air and sizzling bursts of pain. Clearly, she had no way of responding, so the face-fucking incubus reluctantly shoved her out and slapped her face a few times for good measure.

The girl coughed and sputtered while struggling to assemble a response as fast as possible.

"M-Master, of course! T-This worthless slave loves Master!"

"Maybe if you mindbreak your slave a bit further, they'll like you more... I think. Maybe. The secret is lots of orgasms."

"Tie her to the sybian for a week, I guess... start with that, and see if she's any better at being a cuddleslut."

"No, I think it's flowers. In dating sims, it's always about the chocolate and flowers. Get the most expensive ones."

"Flowers? Are there even any flowers that grow around here in Hell?"

Another incubus unceremoniously shoved his enormous dick back down the slave's throat, causing the poor girl to gag and flail with her limbs.

"Raising a cuddleslut is too much of a hassle..."

"Yeah, not really worth the effort for such a niche kink. Vanilla isn't that popular, anyways."

"Agreed..."

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was this chapter strange? I have no idea...  
> I woke up this morning and wanted a more sensual love-making scene so I ran with it. I don't know what happened at the end of this chapter... I got sleepy and weird stuff came out.
> 
> Anyhow, here's a poll that only exists to satisfy my curiosity! Which kinks are you into?


	17. How do you stop a 50-ton bulldozer?

Xuelan was disoriented.

Her head was spinning and the other slave was screaming in the background.

...What...?

Why did Kien start fucking her? There was no reason for this at all.

In fact, he was still touching her, and his hands were somehow latched around her hips. Xuelan felt him entering her pussy from behind, pounding her so amazingly hard it was completely sublime, although she was in too much of a daze to really process everything. It felt _really_ nice, and her brain was a white fog of liquid pleasure. Xuelan was vaguely aware that noises were coming out of her mouth, although she had no idea what she was saying.

She was... probably begging him to fuck her to pieces... or something else lecherous and perverted... she honestly had no idea.

But it didn't matter, right? Since it felt good?

But... how exactly had things ended up in this state?

And...

There was a creepy unsettling feeling in her mind.

Xuelan turned her head, and she could faintly see from her low vantage point on the floor that other slave girl was sobbing and shrieking while simultaneously gang-banged by five incubi with a variety of different twisted fetishes. Embarrassingly, her first naive thought that it looked kind of fun. However, reality gradually crept up on her, and Xuelan slowly remembered that this wasn't just one of her hardcore wet fantasies that she sometimes masturbated to underneath her comfy blankets in bed.

No.

In fact, that girl was genuinely suffering.

She was bleeding from her loins, and a trail of bright blood ran down her thighs. They had forced their way into her anus without lubricating her, and the entire group of them had raped her so hard that they had torn her rectum. None of the incubi seemed to care, and in fact they looked giddy with excitement. Each of the five demons were simultaneously having their own way with the poor slave; one was trying to flog the girl with a barbed whip, another was dripping hot wax... there was so much going on at once that Xuelan couldn't believe that it was physically possible for one person to experience so many thing at once.

Thinking more carefully, just one incubus was probably more than enough for a single ordinary human girl to handle.

Xuelan was only being fucked by Kien (who probably wasn't even trying his hardest...), and already her brain felt like it had turned to mush.

What kind of nightmarish horror would it be to handle five sex demons at a time...?

...

Xuelan suddenly felt sick.

This was so wrong.

She suddenly wanted Kien to stop, but she had no idea how to get him to pull out. Her ex-boyfriend was currently like a bulldozer that would topple anything in its path to achieve its goal, and he was basically running her over with 50 metric tons of uncontrollable demonic sex-lust. How exactly do you stop a 50-ton bulldozer?

Well... ordinarily, you just don't.

Xuelan actually tried hitting him (which did nothing except hurt her own hand), she tried shouting at him (he just covered her mouth), and she even tried to kick him in the balls (unfortunately shielded by a force field), which all turned out to be fruitless endeavors. 

In the end, she could only lay there like a dead fish hoping that he'd eventually realize that she stopped moving, which incidentally only took a whole ten minutes.

Ten minutes, or equivalently, 600 seconds.

One Mississippi...

Two Mississippi...

Three Mississippi...

...

One-Hundred Mississippi...

Two-Hundred Mississippi...

...

It was a frustratingly long time!

Eventually, Kien gave a loud groan and shot a bucketload of cum inside her.

After that, he finally seemed to return to his senses.

The first thing he said was a complete mood-killer.

_("Hey Xue, I leveled up!")_

_("...")_

Xuelan wanted to go bang her head on something and question all her life decisions.

\+ + +

_("So in case you didn't notice, I gave you the ability to see in the dark. Also you can use telepathy with me now!")_

_("Um, thanks... Kien.")_

...The incubus still hadn't stopped slow-fucking her even though he was 'done'...

What a truly hopeless pervert...

_("Although the telepathy ability is redundant because I can read your mind anyways.")_

Wait, what?!

_("Hm? I own all of you, you know? This means I own your thoughts too!")_

_("Get the fuck out of my head, Kien!")_

_("Don't worry, Xue. I only peak inside your thoughts occasionally. Not all the time.")_

Only occasionally...

Ahhh!

Kien had rudely angled and thrusted his dick up against Xuelan's A-Spot deep inside her vagina.

_("Kien!")_

_("It's so fun to tease you.")_

_("You have the mental maturity of a teenager... I don't understand how you can act so different on the outside!")_

_("Hm... Did you like being my slave? To me, it sounded like you had a lot of fun. Let's do it a whole lot more.")_

Xuelan tried to elbow her ex-boyfriend again.

_("Damn, Kien! Can you be serious for a second? That girl! The one being gang-banged right now. Is she going to be okay?")_

The slave girl's muffled screams were still wailing miserably in the background.

_("I don't know.")_

_("What do you mean, you don't know?!")_

_("I mean what I say. I simply don't know. She might die, or she might not.")_

_("What the fuck?")_

_("Slave girls die all the time.")_

_("I thought you said we were basically immortal.")_

_("You are. Humans are effectively immortal in Hell. But you don't regenerate without healing magic. Sometimes, it costs more to fix a slave than to buy a new one, so their half-living remains get dumped down a big dark pit for the rest of eternity.")_

_("How the fuck is that okay?!")_

_("It's not okay.")_

Nonsensical tears suddenly started welling up in Xuelan's eyes again.

Why... 

Why was everything so messed up like this?

What had any of these victims done to deserve any of this horrible fate?

Why wasn't anyone doing something about this?

Why didn't _they_ lift a finger as passive bystanders?

Why were they helplessly watching it unfold right in front of their eyes?

_("No, that's wrong, Xue.")_

Kien suddenly interrupted her train of thought.

The 24-year-old girl froze on the ground as his steady and calm voice echoed in her head.

_("Think carefully. Are you a victim, or are you an accomplice?")_

There was a pause.

Xuelan's eyes briefly made contact with Kien's.

They were interrupted by an explosion several cars up ahead on the train.

∎


	18. She’s weak to ear nibbles

The train lurched, and Xuelan found herself thrown into Kien's arms.

There was the ear-splitting screech of wheels grinding against steel, flying sparks as electrical components tore apart, and the railcar flipped before Xuelan could process what was happening. If it hadn't been for Kien's lightning fast reactions, Xuelan would have slammed face first into wall, but her ex-boyfriend somehow managed to shelter her while avoiding the flying crates of debris.

 _("Hold on.")_ He said quietly.

One of the other incubi had blasted a hole on the side of the train and jumped out of the tumbling boxcar.

The entire train had derailed, and the long string of metal cars were rolling down the side of a steep rocky slope. The angular momentum of each section was not even, and some parts rotated faster than the others. The overwhelming torque caused several of the linking connectors to snap, and the train broke apart into several smaller sections, while little bits of metal, debris, and smoke spilled out of the fissures of torn plate metal.

The world was spinning too fast.

Kien lept, and suddenly the box of hell was crashing away from them down the slope.

He hit the ground harshly and immediately broke into a violent roll on cragged sharp rock while shielding Xuelan inside his arms. The impact hurt worse than being hit by a car, but Kien didn't show any sign of a reaction despite the fact that several long bloody gashes from blunt trauma streaked across his back like claw marks. Several of his ribs and limbs were shattered, but he still kicked his broken legs against the gravel to break their violent roll down the steep incline.

The two bodies flipped like rag dolls in the air a few times, but finally Kien managed to apply enough friction to bring their precarious tumble down the rubble to a skidding stop.

The incubus was breathing heavily.

 _("See? Piece of cake.")_ He said.

"Kien... you're crazy." 

There was a distant boom of a powerful collision at the bottom of the ravine, accompanied by a thick plume of black smoke.

The train was totally destroyed.

Xuelan was lying on top of her ex-boyfriend.

"Kien... are you okay?" She asked with an extremely anxious voice.

_("I'm totally fine.")_

She pressed down on on Kien's thighs, doubtful of his response.

_("Ow! Ouch! Okay! Fine! I have a bunch of broken bones!)_

Xuelan released her hands and gingerly tried to get off of him without disturbing the incubus too much.

"Can you walk?"

_("I'll make myself walk.")_

The pre-medical student frowned.

Even though she only had a limited knowledge of human physiology, bones were necessary to provide the structural support for muscles and tendons. If they were broken, it was virtually impossible to move through brute-strength or pure willpower, simply because there was nothing for even the bulkiest muscles to exert their force on.

Furthermore, Xuelan knew from her lifeguard training certification during high school that neck braces were extremely important if any form of spinal injury was suspected. It was bad to move an injured patient frivolously, since overextension or flexion of the neck could cause irreversible damage to the spinal cord.

But this was a magical world, so... maybe things were different with a demon's body.

Also, incubi possessed this suspicious healing method...

"Do I really need to sit on your dick every time you get yourself beaten up like this?" Xuelan sounded exasperated. "Because this really isn't sexy."

Kien had a smile plastered on his face.

_("I would greatly appreciate it if you could fix the superficial injuries.")_

"You don't care about the internal ones?"

_("Well, a level 43 demon shouldn't be injured this badly from jumping out of a train, so it would be a good idea to hide the obvious wounds before the rest of the passengers stumble upon us. You probably don't have much time to work your magic, so it's better to prioritize those surface injuries first.")_

"Huh... and how would I do that?"

_("Your saliva should work well enough as a quick band-aid.")_

Xuelan suddenly gave Kien a long unpleasant stare.

In other words, he basically wanted her to lick his wounds! But she wasn't a cat! 

This universe was too perverted...

\+ + +

Xuelan spent the next five minutes scrambling over Kien and trying to kiss anything that looked injured, which was frankly almost everything. It wasn't very erotic because she was trying to rush as fast as possible, and she quickly became tangled up in his limbs. In fact, it looked more like she was playing Twister with her ex-boyfriend.

Fortunately, her saliva truly seemed to be extremely effective, and any cut or gash that Xuelan licked immediately disappeared. It was almost like her mouth was an eraser, and she only needed to touch it for the damage to fade away. Of course, Xuelan knew that the healing was only superficial, and there were likely many deeper injuries underneath Kien's skin.

The black-haired girl was in the process of hurriedly licking Kien's thighs when a pair of other incubi showed up.

"Oh, there you are Kien," the incubus named Arteise said. "We couldn't find you when the train derailed."

They glanced at the kneeling slave, who frankly looked a lot like she was giving him blow-job.

"Um... it looks like you're busy..." Neiel said. "...But it's not like I'm judging or anything..."

The red-haired incubus had a bit of a conflicted expression on his face.

"Hey, Neiel. That man is successful because he has lots of sex. We should all take a page from his book and train as much as possible."

"I mean... yeah, grinding for EXP is good... but our train literally just exploded. My guess is that it was the terrorist they were looking for. They said they were looking for a black tiger... and maybe they found the suspect in one of the cars further up."

" **Have you seen the three guardsmen?** " Kien asked casually.

"Uh, yeah. They were chasing somebody into the nearby village. It's called the town of Bostow or something."

"I saw flashing sirens in the distance. They're probably on high alert."

" **Any wounded on our side?** "

"Not really. There's a few of us who are a bit banged up, but nothing serious."

"Mostly property damage, to be honest. Like, Earl's slave is in really bad shape. It's going to cost a fortune to get her fixed up."

"Yeah, I feel bad for that guy, and a little guilty too. I wonder if I should help pitch in with the healer costs," Neiel said.

Kien was expressionless. He placed a hand on his knee, as if he was about to stand up.

Xuelan immediately whined from her misleading position in between his legs, as if she clearly did not want him to leave.

_("I'm almost done! Ten more seconds! Hold on!")_

Arteise had a surprised look on his face.

"Kien, you really have such a greedy bitch. I've never seen anything like it. How do you train your slave to be so eager?"

Kien's face was completely earnest as he answered the incubi with all seriousness.

" **Plenty of love and kisses. And a warm bed at night.** "

Arteise rolled his eyes, as if he couldn't believe what Kien was saying. In his eyes, Kien was definitely keeping his true methods a secret, and he was obviously bull-shitting them with butterflies and unicorns.

Neiel looked intrigued. "Really?"

" **My slave likes to be cuddled while reading in bed. She's also weak to ear nibbles and has a sensitive clavicle.** "

_("Kien! Stop screwing around. You are forbidden from sharing any more!")_

The incubus spanked Xuelan lightly on the butt, and then slowly pulled himself to his feet.

Kien smiled cheerfully.

There was no sign that he was in pain, even though many bones inside his body were unquestionably fractured and broken.

_("Kien... are you really okay like this? You're really able to walk??")_

The incubus ignored the voice in his head.

" **So. Where to next?** "

∎


	19. Locked

To Xuelan's dismay, the next thing she knew, she was being shoved into a cage.

 _("Kien!")_ She tried to call out telepathically.

However, her ex-boyfriend ignored her entirely. Instead, he grinned along with the other five incubi in their party, as if he had already become friends with all the sex demons. Kien was one of the tallest in the entire group, and he towered over the shortest incubus by half a head. Despite his menacing stature, he currently seemed to be in an easy-going and relaxed mood.

" **Any of you hungry? I heard there's a nice brothel in town.** "

"Oh, I'm famished. I didn't get to eat my fill earlier with Earl's bitch." Arteise said.

"I could use a bath. My slave bled all over me and it's a mess." Earl added in agreement.

Earlier, they had walked down the slope for five minutes before rendezvous-ing with everyone else in front of the train wreck. The pile of metal had been smashed to smithereens, and it was smoking so badly that Xuelan couldn't help but cough while her eyes teared from the burning fumes. There were little bits of debris and scattered dismembered limbs (...she tried not to look at them) all over the bottom of the ravine, and the disaster scene looked like the aftermath of a plane crash.

"You're not taking your slave with you, Kien?" Neiel asked.

" **I thought it would be nice to spend some time with you five.** "

Xuelan had a pleading look on her eyes.

_("Kien! Don't leave me behind!")_

Kien expressionlessly added the lock on the door of her cage, and he showed so sign of having heard anything she said. It was almost as if her ex-boyfriend had transformed into another person... a frightening and cold-hearted stranger that she no longer recognized. 

In theory, Xuelan knew that he was acting, but why couldn't he answer her telepathic messages?

The bastard never explained anything to her, and she hated being kept in the dark. It made her feel powerless, and it reminded her of the fact that she truly was at his total mercy. For the past fifteen minutes, Xuelan had almost been firing telepathic messages to her ex-boyfriend nearly constantly, almost desperate to reassure herself that all of this was just roleplay, but at some point he simply stopped responding.

She wasn't even sure if he was still listening to her...

"Your poor slave looks like she's about to cry," Ranes laughed. "She's really attached to you."

" **She's going to need to learn to take care of herself.** "

"Neglect play, huh?"

Xuelan was indignant. This was not neglect play!

On a more serious level, what if another demon or monster wandered over and found her left behind inside a cage? This was extremely dangerous, and there was no telling when someone might come along and decide to whisk her away. Objectively speaking, it was a million times safer right next to Kien's side, and she seriously did not want to be abandoned.

After fiddling with the lock, Kien stood up and turned to the rest of the incubi.

" **Let's see if we can invite anyone else to come with us,** " he said.

\+ + +

Shortly thereafter, a small crowd of sex demons departed from the train wreck, leaving behind only a small number of imp-like demons that were hauling things around and cleaning up the wreckage.

Xuelan's cage was identical to a heavy-duty dog crate, and it was only big enough for her to kneel. The space was cramped, and she hugged her legs to her chest, trying to curl up into a smaller ball. However, it was difficult for her to find a comfortable position. It was hard for her to imagine how anyone might sleep in one of these unpleasant things.

Xuelan felt cold, parched, and hungry. Her aching body was terribly sore.

For almost no reason whatsoever, tears started forming at her eyes again.

She remembered at this point that she hadn't eaten anything since yesterday. This morning, Kien had tied her to a vibrator and forced her to orgasm continuously for hours. Then, some crazy stuff happened and she ended up on a train, where Kein fucked her brains out once again. Then the train exploded and they almost died, and now he had shoved her into a cage just as the sky was starting to turn dark.

The adrenaline and oxytocin in her body was starting to fade, and Xuelan was starting to feel the intense emotional rebound.

The aches in her body aside, her feelings swung wildly like tiny rowboat tossed about in a hurricane. Was Kien on her side or not? Was he nice or cruel? Was this abuse? Did he actually care about her? Or was she just a tool to be used and exploited as long as it was convenient? Had he been manipulating her brain this entire time? How many of her thoughts were actually her own? Could he just be controlling her like a puppet strung up on a marionette? She felt like she was going insane with frenzied thoughts of doubt.

She was his slave.

His slave. His slave. His slave!

Kien could do anything to her and she couldn't lift a finger to resist.

Xuelan felt herself emotionally breaking down.

At one point, the imps came to Xuelan's cage, and they hauled her over to a pile of crates and cages that they had salvaged from the wreck. The boxes were stacked on top of each other like a pile of luggage, and the little demons covered the entire pile with a large black tarp, plummeting everything into sheer darkness.

Xuelan was busy wiping the tears from her eyes as she cried silently, too preoccupied with her mess of feelings to really pay attention to what was happening around her.

\+ + +

There was a weak clunk from cage right next to hers.

Xuelan slowly turned around, and she remembered that she could see in the dark. Kien had given her this ability a short while ago when he had leveled up.

Her eyes slowly scanned through the darkness of crates and boxes.

It was...

...that other slave from back in the railcar.

She was missing one of her legs, her entire face was covered with blood, and a large gash the size of a boulder was torn through her abdomen. A large steel pipe was impaled through her chest, and her raspy breathing was weak and strained. By all respect and reason, she ought to have been dead. There was no physical way a human body could sustain terrible injuries of such severity.

But humans were immortal.

The half-dead corpse slowly reached her hand through the cage bars.

It passed in between the steel grids and extended into Xuelan's cage.

At first, Xuelan was frightened, but she hesitantly grabbed hold of that bloody hand.

It was cold, slimy, and horrific, like holding hands with a zombie. However, the girl's grip was solid, as if saying that they were there for each other in this hellish nightmare of a place.

Tears continued to spill down Xuelan's eyes.

All of this was unforgivable.

Unforgivable.

\+ + +

Xuelan was hyperventilating, and she forced herself to take deep breaths.

She swallowed the knots her throat and wiped the tears from eyes with her hands, which were now stained with the girl's blood.

 _("I'm not a victim.")_ She told herself.

She repeated it to herself.

She had no idea if telepathy would do anything if her owner wasn't in range to hear her thoughts, but somehow it was reassuring to talk to herself with the voice in her head. It was a little bit of a useless skill, but even useless skills felt empowering in this kind of dark and wretched situation. Skills meant that she could do things, and it meant that she wasn't just a useless bag of meat to be fucked and raped for EXP by cruel and sadistic sex demons.

 _("I'm not a victim!")_ Xuelan screamed into her mind, her voice choked up.

She pushed herself up to her knees and crawled weakly to the door of the cage.

Even though she knew it was probably useless, Xuelan motivated herself to try to tamper with the lock. At the very minimum, she could try to familiarize herself with the design, and hopefully that added knowledge would eventually give her some useful future insight. Even if she had no idea how to pick locks today, perhaps one day she could gradually learn the skill.

But as soon as she placed her hands on it, the device clicked open.

A realization crossed Xuelan's mind.

Kien had never locked it.

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is Xue overly dramatic? Or is she not dramatic enough??  
> I feel weird because my chapters often fluctuate in tone (based on my daily mood), and I'm trying to leave the plot open enough so that inconsistent behavior can be explained by possible plot details (i.e. mind control), but I wonder if it still reads okay.


	20. Do you like animals?

Xuelan's first reaction was to stare blankly.

Why?

The cage door swung open, and she stared at it in confusion.

Why had Kien left it unlocked?

Should she slip out? Run away?

The 24-year-old froze. Now that the choice was suddenly presented in front of her, Xuelan didn't have the slightest clue about what to do. Her knowledge of this universe was limited, and she only knew a few details from the Encyclopedia entry that she read yesterday. Was it possible for slaves to escape? Was there even any place that she could run away to?

Xuelan shook her head in a daze.

No. There were other people who needed attention more urgently than herself. Even if she did manage to somehow flee, she wouldn't be able to live with the guilt of leaving all these other slaves behind. Besides, she didn't even have it that bad compared to the others. Aside from raping her, at least Kien hadn't tortured her to the brink of death...

...Wait, was that the new standard now? Not engaging in sexual torture = good guy?

Somehow, Xuelan felt like her reference point for normalcy had been corrupted... Even if Kien was a lot better than all of these horrible men in Hell, it didn't mean that he was an inherently good person. In her teenage years, she had been perfectly self-aware that although "bad boys" like gangsters were hot on a fictional level, they were definitely no good for long-term relationships. This was part of the reason why she had only been comfortable dating Kien online, yet freaked out when he showed up in real life.

Ultimately, Kien was the one responsible for enslaving her to begin with. She couldn't forgive him for that.

She definitely hadn't asked to be dragged down to Hell, although her ex-boyfriend did call her an _'accomplice'_.

An accomplice.

Did that mean there was a crime?

Maybe it was the terrorists and the bombings and the explosions? Was Kien somehow involved in all of that?

Was Kien a terrorist?

Xuelan really wanted to ask him, but she wasn't sure if he'd give her a straight answer. He never seemed to explain anything, and Xuelan always had the thought in the back of her head that he was hiding things from her.

The black-haired girl crept out of her cage and slipped over to her neighbor's prison. 

She stared at the lock from the outside. The design was honestly very simple. There was a tiny light on the lock that glowed red if it was active. However, when Xuelan walked in front of it, it turned green, as if there was some kind of sensor that detected whether there was someone outside of the cage. The obvious conclusion was that this lock was designed so that it could only be opened by someone physically standing on the outside, and it would remain locked in the 'red' mode if the prisoner tried to fiddle with it from the inside.

Xuelan twisted open the lock, and it opened with a simple click.

The slaves in the other cages seemed to hear Xuelan rummaging around, and someone whispered nervously.

"Is someone out of their cage? What's happening?"

"Huh? They forgot to lock someone's cage?"

Xuelan froze for a moment as the gossip started spreading among the pile of crates.

She thought about things for a brief moment, and then whispered back into the confused pile of cages.

"I'm out of my cage. If anyone wants theirs unlocked too, speak up." Xuelan said.

"Are you crazy?! You'll get all of us into trouble!"

"N-No thanks! I don't want to be punished..."

"Runaway slaves... are confiscated from their owners and become the Demon King's property... and sentenced to public displays of torture in the Imperial Capital for the rest of eternity... it's so horrible..."

"Please... go back to your cage..."

"Don't do this... Seriously..."

Frightened by what she was hearing, Xuelan immediately stopped talking and went silent, leaving the chorus of slaves to whine and whisper amongst themselves in the darkness. Fortunately, none of them could see, so they had no way of knowing what she was doing. Xuelan was like an anonymous specter, and they didn't even know her identity.

Xuelan crawled into her neighbor's cage and stared at the half-dead corpse of a girl.

Escaping... was probably impossible...

But at the very least in the meantime, she could try to alleviate her acquaintance's pain?

She stared helplessly at the mess of blood and gore.

Xuelan was only a pre-medical student, but there was so many injuries on the slave's body that she didn't even know how to start.

She was trained in CPR, which emphasized "Airway-Breathing-Circulation", but it barely seemed applicable with such catastrophic wounds. Chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth hardly felt appropriate in this kind of situation. Xuelan had also learned on her first day that it was impossible for humans to die from asphyxiation, which likely also meant that catastrophic blood loss was unlikely to kill a person either.

Given all these facts, was there even anything that she could do?

Perhaps... the most merciful approach was to put the girl to sleep...?

Twist her neck? Induce a coma? Render her unconscious?

Suddenly, Xuelan felt sick.

She had wanted to go to medical school because she wanted to help people.

All these horrors unfolding in front of her ran counter to all of her ideals and beliefs. Xuelan felt the tears rising in her eyes again, and she felt hopeless. This was a nightmare. She didn't understand anything anymore. She didn't know what she believed in, and she didn't know who she was. She didn't even understand why Kien had unlocked her cage, especially if she couldn't do anything. What was the point?

Xuelan's vision was blurry as she lifted the girls' head and put it on her lap.

She firmly grabbed the slave girl's chin and mandibular bone for leverage.

...Just one...

Twist...?

\+ + +

Suddenly, the black tarp was pulled off the pile of cages.

Xuelan almost cried out from surprise, and she instantly let go of the slave girls' neck.

"Huh... peculiar... I was wondering why there was so much whispering..."

It was a man's voice, and it wasn't Kien's.

The night sky was visible up above, but there weren't any stars. An oddly shaped moon faintly glowed in the darkness.

"Twisting the girl's neck is a reasonable thought, but it's actually bad idea," the strange man said.

The shadowy figure walked over to the cage and casually shut the door on the two slaves. It closed with a loud bang, and he twisted the lock until the light turned red, effectively locking Xuelan inside the cramped cage together with her severely injured companion.

Xuelan swallowed, her body suddenly trembling.

She had been caught.

"You're right that it will make them unconscious and spare them of the pain," he continued. "However, that's only for the short term. Their soul will wake up again eventually, and then the pain will be twice as bad. Dismemberment and decapitation is quite cruel, you know? Can you imagine how much it hurts to be headless? Or to have your neck broken and unable to move? Humans are immortal in Hell."

Xuelan's hands were shaking.

She... didn't mean for any of that to happen...

The man squatted down right outside of the cage, and Xuelan suddenly recognized him.

It was the incubus named Neiel. 

She mainly remembered him because he wanted to use her mouth as a toilet inside the train...

Xuelan shuddered, and the incubus laughed softly.

"You're new, aren't you?" He said. "Did Kien catch you recently? How did you get out of your cage?"

Xuelan squeezed herself against the far corner of the cage, trying to get as far away as possible from the sex demon.

"I... I... thought you were going to the brothel with the rest of the incubi..." She stammered.

Then she remembered that she forgot to include a slave's proper form of address, and belated tacked the honorific on at the end.

"...Master."

The red-haired demon laughed, as if he found this very amusing.

"What's your name, slave?"

"...X-Xue." She whispered, her body shaking with fear.

"No. Wrong. Slaves do not have names."

Xuelan immediately stiffened, but the incubus smiled.

He shifted so that he was sitting down on the ground, leaning with his back against the bars of the two girls' cage.

"Don't worry though. I'm not here to hurt you. I'm definitely a pervert, but I don't get off on pain."

"...Why are you here... Master?"

The incubus shrugged.

"I don't like crowds. I don't like hanging out with the bros. Would rather spend time with the ladies."

"But... the brothel...? There's plenty...?"

"Say Xue, do you like animals?"

"What?"

"I lived on a farm when I was human. I often liked to hang out in the stables. Animals are nicer companions than people."

"...You're saying that slaves are like animals...? ...Master?"

"I've never had a slave try to kill me, for one. Other demons... well not quite so. I get uncomfortable when there's too many demons crowded around in the same place."

"So you're saying that you're into bestiality, Master?"

The red-haired incubus suddenly laughed.

He turned around and looked at Xuelan in the eyes.

"Bring me that other slave girl. And pull out that metal pipe in her chest."

Xuelan stared blankly at him, unmoving.

"It's a bad habit to make a Master say something twice," he said.

Having no other choice, Xuelan slowly placed her hands on the metal pipe, and tugged until it came out of the half-dead girl's torso. It took a lot more force than she expected, and Xuelan fell on her rear end when the entire length of steel finally slipped out. A large pool of blood immediately came spilling from the new wound site like a fountain.

The incubus reached his hand in between the bars, and he was holding something in his palm.

"A healing salve," he said.

Xuelan gingerly took it from him. It was a waxy substance that was a lot like a stick of butter.

"It won't be enough for everything, but you should be able to use it to stop the bleeding from the major wounds," Neiel explained.

The 24-year-old glanced back up at the incubus, and then she started rubbing it against the girl's injuries.

Xuelan was quiet for almost a minute as she moved her hands.

Then, she suddenly spoke up.

"Why?" She asked.

Neiel was sitting with his back against the cage. He was looking up at the night sky, even though there weren't any stars to admire on the celestial canvas of darkness. His expression was quiet, and he seemed content to sit in silence.

"Why not?" He replied after a long delay.

Xuelan didn't know how to respond.

The red-haired incubus did not say anything more.

\+ + +

A short while later, Xuelan was finished with applying all of the healing salve. It had melted away as she rubbed it against the girl's skin. Currently, the other slave was unconscious, so Xuelan was awkwardly left in silence with the other incubus.

Neiel slowly stood up from the ground.

"Hey." He spoke.

Xuelan looked up.

"I like you."

She blinked, unsure how to process this sudden drop of new information. She wasn't even sure if he was serious, or if it was a skilled womanizer (or sexual predator?)'s technique to flatter a girl in order to butter her up. In either case, Xuelan was reflexively skeptical, because she never had a guy tell such a thing to her face in all the 24 years that she lived on Earth. Kien didn't count because their relationship was virtual. In terms of real-life relationships, Xuelan had never been very popular outside of flings and hook-ups. She knew that her face was mediocre and that her personality was boring.

"You'll be in serious trouble if the other incubi find you outside of your cage," Neiel said.

The black-haired girl stared at him wordlessly.

Clearly, it was this incubus's fault for locking her inside this cage along with the other injured slave.

"I also have a water bottle and an apple," he continued. "My guess is that Kien hasn't fed you at all."

He smiled sweetly at Xuelan.

"Suck me off, and I might consider helping you out."

Neiel slowly started undoing the belt around his waist.

"Will you do it?"

∎

[ ](https://www.scribblehub.com/profile/31342/minacia/)


	21. Five points

Xuelan stared blankly and ignored his proposition.

"Why did you end up in Hell, if you don't mind me asking... Master Neiel?" She asked.

The incubus paused in the process of undoing his pants.

A smile slowly crept up on his face.

"I'll take that as a no, then."

He squatted down right next to Xuelan, who was still clearly uncomfortable with his presence. His belt was half-undone, and the 24-year-old girl could clearly see his trousers hanging provocatively low, to the point that there was only a paper-thin margin before everything would be exposed in plain view. However, the incubus looked neither angry nor savage. Neiel didn't even look disappointed. It was almost as if he half-expected the response that Xuelan had given.

"People tend not to brag about their Earthly crimes unless they are proud of their exploits," he said mysteriously.

"So you regret what you did... Master?"

Neiel continued to evade Xuelan's questions.

"Say, Xue? How many people do you suppose you need to murder before you get sent down to Hell? One? Two? A dozen people? A hundred victims?"

"I don't know. I'm not religious. In Buddhism, they are less tolerant of any form of murder, and slaughtering animals is also considered sinful. In contrast, a soldier's exploits in war is not usually considered that bad in Abrahamic religions."

"What if I told you that the criteria is different for everyone?"

"What do you mean?"

"People go to Hell if they subconsciously believe they deserve it. If a person violates their own moral worldview or begin see themselves as evil, then they condemn themselves to an afterlife of punishment in Hell."

Xuelan paused for a moment, processing Neiel's words.

"That's twisted."

"Is it?"

"Very. There are many horrible people who die totally convinced that they are doing good things. Like have you ever heard of the saying, 'the road to Hell is paved with good intentions'?"

"Then you are saying that you believe even more people belong in Hell, Xue?"

The black-haired girl blinked, unsure of exactly how to respond.

"Well... I'm not sure... I'm a moral relativist. Everyone has their own point of view. Some people say that vegetarianism is morally good, and other people say that polyandry is morally bad. I'm not sure if there is an absolute answer."

The incubus suddenly laughed.

"Most people would say that murder is an absolute moral sin," he countered.

"I'm not like most people."

A menacing look suddenly appeared on his eyes.

"You don't believe that I'm pure evil? I am a sex demon, after all. I've hurt many many people."

"I'm not sure if good and evil exists, unless it's coming from someone's point of view."

"Then what about from your point of view? Am I evil?"

Xuelan frowned at the incubus.

"I don't know enough about you. You haven't hurt me. You hurt the other girl, but then you came back to heal her."

Neiel smiled and slid the water bottle through the bars of the cage.

Xuelan took it from him hesitantly, almost as if she suspected that it was a trap. 

"What about now?" Neiel asked.

The 24-year-old quickly opened the bottle of water and started pouring it in her mouth. Her throat genuinely was very parched, and Xuelan intended to drain it all before the red-haired incubus could change his mind.

It only took fifteen seconds before she chugged the entire container, and she wiped her mouth after leaving the plastic bottle empty.

"Five points." Xuelan said.

The incubus raised an eyebrow.

"Five points out of what?"

"A hundred."

"What happens at one hundred?"

"Then you've maxed out my affection meter, and I'll suck your dick."

Neiel immediately snorted.

He stood up and twisted the lock at the front of the cage until it turned green, unlocking the metal prison.

"I think you've had enough for one night," he said. "Go back to your cage."

\+ + +

Xuelan stretched her legs momentarily for the brief moment of freedom that she had.

She was taking her time, and the black-haired girl had the vague idea that Neiel wouldn't mind if she loitered a little. Her impression of the incubus was that he was genuinely a soft guy, at least to the extent that he wasn't about to spontaneously rape and abuse her, as low as her 'standards' seem to have dropped ever since she came to Hell.

Xuelan stared up at the night sky.

The moon genuinely did look very odd, almost like a weirdly shaped ginseng root with multiple knobs and prongs. 

Based on her limited knowledge of astronomy and celestial motion, that type of irregular shape indicated that the moon certainly wasn't spherical. The rotation of rigid bodies in space is only stable with respect to the axes with the largest and smallest moments of inertia, so one would ordinarily expect a rotating moon to spin around its longest axis. 

However, it was hard to tell whether this hellish universe followed Galilean mechanics. It was probably premature to assume anything, and it frankly wouldn't even be that surprising if the world turned out to be flat. Xuelan had already seen a lot of magic happen in front of her eyes, and she was nearly prepared to throw all her common sense out of the window.

In either case, Xuelan had zero expectations for anything.

She had been summoned into an isekai nightmare as an accessory fucktoy, and this wasn't even her own story.

Xuelan was beginning to suspect that Kien had a variety of different cheats, but she was self-aware of the fact that she was clearly the supporting character. She wasn't anyone important, and her honest opinion was that Kien could have done just fine summoning virtually anyone else to be his sex slave.

"I know the stars are very beautiful, but you're dragging your feet," Neiel called out from the side.

Obviously, that was sarcasm, since there weren't any stars in the sky.

"You're literally a naked woman spacing out in front of a sex demon, and you expect me to do absolutely nothing?"

"I didn't ask to be here," Xuelan responded quietly, still looking up at the sky. "And you seem nice compared to the others."

There was a sigh from the incubus standing some distance away from her.

"You're too naive," he declared, as if pronouncing a verdict.

He walked up behind her, and Xuelan turned around slowly, perplexed by what he was saying.

Without warning, he grabbed her by the throat and shoved her on top of her steel cage.

He was choking her, and Xuelan couldn't breath. Her limbs flailed uselessly, and she tried to pry Neiel's hands off her her neck. However, his grip was impossibly strong, and his body was like a solid wall of iron. Panic flickered in her eyes, and she tried to shout out loud, but his hands were crushing her windpipe. Her naked back was shoved against the top of the steel cage, and the incubus was forcing her neck against the metal bars.

The black-haired girl was confused. She didn't understand why the incubus was suddenly doing this. It came out of nowhere, and she had thought that Neiel was one of the nice ones. There was no prior indication that this man was a psychopath, and she felt shocked by this sudden change in behavior.

"Don't trust anyone," the incubus whispered coldly.

He continued to strangle Xuelan's neck.

"Don't trust me. Don't trust Kien. Never trust anyone other than yourself. Remember that."

Xuelan was gasping, but no air moved through her throat. White stars were bursting in her peripheral vision, and everything was starting to fade to black. She could feel her consciousness slipping away from her.

Neiel spread her legs atop the cage, exposing her lower folds as he continued to choke the girl forcefully.

He dropped his pants and lined his cock up with her entrance.

"Let's make this into a lesson for you," he said quietly.

He began thrusting, but Xuelan couldn't breath. She felt like she was dying.

Soon after, she couldn't remember anything else.

∎


	22. Asphyxiation

When Xuelan awoke, her lungs were burning.

It burned because she couldn't breath, and in fact she hadn't been able to breath for a while. Her body was screaming at her for oxygen, but she had been suffocating for so long that she was almost used to this persistent feeling of asphyxiation. She couldn't think clearly, and there was a massive fog over her brain. Every muscle in her body felt burdened with a thousand pounds of weight, and she felt like she was being crushed underneath 11 kilometers of deep ocean water.

She should have been dead.

Neiel had choked her to death.

He had raped her while strangling her neck... until she passed out and died of suffocation.

The experience was horrific, and Xuelan vaguely recalled the calm look on his face while she suffocated from the lack of air. He had done it so casually, almost as if it was any ordinary activity that any demon might do on a daily basis. The incubus was merciless and he _knew_ from the look of terror on her eyes that she was panicking, but he still didn't loosen his grip.

This wasn't a game and this wasn't casual breathplay.

Neiel was proving the cruel reality of this hellish universe to her.

She was too naive, and she failed to recognize how much mortal danger a deceptively friendly demon posed to her.

Was it merciful that Neiel had been the first one to kill her? Perhaps she was fortunate that he hadn't done anything worse for her first time? There were a thousand different ways to die, and asphyxiation was a relatively mild method. In a sense, perhaps it was one of the kinder ways to teach a harsh lesson.

Xuelan suddenly realized at this point that dying in Hell was inevitable. It was a lot like sexual virginity, in the sense everyone lost it sooner or later. Attempting to protect it in a den of wolves was almost futile, and Neiel had merely given her a straightforward initiation. It was common for slaves to die, and it was common for demons to kill their slaves for mere amusement. Thanks to this, Xuelan reached the terrifying epiphany that she was going to die many many many more times for the rest of this eternity in Hell.

Immortality was a horrifying curse.

\+ + +

Xuelan couldn't breath.

There was a tentacle-like appendage deep inside Xuelan's throat, blocking her windpipe. It traveled all the way down her esophagus and into her stomach, where it stirred around the folds of her belly and secreted strange fluids, causing the girl to sweat profusely.

It was part of this rope-like snake/octopus creature that was entwined around her entire body. The monster moved and squeezed periodically, tightening and relaxing around her torso like a living organism. Its tendrils actively constricted around its prey, and several free tentacles were stuffed into various holes on Xuelan's body. They were like long snakes that searched new dens to reside in. The tip of each tendril had a narrow little tongue, and it furiously licked away at any sweat, saliva, or body fluids that emerged from her body.

A while ago, the unconscious Xuelan had been shoved back into her cage, her pussy streaming with the incubus's cum. The door was promptly shut and securely locked.

The perpetrator had maliciously opened a jar over the prison, and a small slimy monster had plopped out onto the floor. By instinct, it latched itself onto the nearest body, and it began tightening around its incapacitated prey. The helpless girl was left writhing on the floor, suffocated and unable to breath, sweating profusely and leaking body fluids all over the ground.

Of course, the girl was hardly conscious and barely able to perceive anything that was happening to her. However, the incubus hadn't taken out this exotic creature from his inventory for her sake. He had an ulterior motive.

It was a very impressive sight to behold.

The girl looked utterly devastated and defiled, as if destroyed and broken beyond her physical limits.

The dramatic visual effect was part of his plan.

There was something that he needed to confirm.

Neiel sat on top of the metal cage with the squirming girl and waited patiently.

\+ + +

A while later, Neiel's anticipated guest finally arrived.

It was a tall sex demon whose right arm was smeared with gore and dripping a long trail of blood.

He walked slowly in the moonlight, his shadowy figure lonely and fearsome, like a genuine monster that had come back from a bloody rampage of violence and carnage. His torso was streaked with scattered wounds, but he had emerged victorious. Despite some intense fighting, his body was mostly intact, although significantly worse for wear.

"Hey," Neiel spoke casually. "It looks like you've been busy."

The other demon abruptly stopped in place.

" **You...** "

"Surprised to see me? Which one did you kill? Earl? Arteise? All of them?"

The demon's gaze suddenly stopped at Neiel's cage.

" **What did you do to my slave?** "

"Oh come on. Look. Kien, you just murdered some guys. Can't you at least pretend to show some concern?"

The red-haired incubus ran his fingers leisurely around the steel bars. The black-haired girl was writhing on the ground, tormented and molested by living rope and tentacles. She was clearly unconscious, half-dead, and unable to breath, but the reflexes in her body were still present. Periodic jerks and twitches of her bound limbs kept her despicably violated corpse interesting to look at.

"Killing is bad, you know? It's illegal in the Empire. You could at least wait until we were all in the Wastelands."

" **I don't give a damn about the Empire's laws.** "

"Oh dear. That's a bit of a problem, isn't it? I don't think you're going to make many friends that way."

" **Release my slave.** "

"I mean, it's a bad idea to make too many enemies. Hell lasts for an eternity, you know? Grudges last even longer. If you kill someone, they drop down a World, but it's pretty damn likely that they'll come back up and start hunting you with a vengeance, together with an army and all their friends. It's not a very pleasant way to live if everyone wants you dead."

" **Let her go. Unless you'd like to die as well.** "

The red-haired incubus hopped off the cage. He spun around a bit leisurely, as if to display that he wasn't concerned or intimidated. 

He squatted down near the ground and ran his fingers slowly through the twitching girl's hair.

Neiel flashed a smug look at Kien.

"I kind of like Xue. Mind if I keep her as my own? I could use my own slave. She's fun to talk to."

" **You are playing with fire. Don't cross me.** "

"Hm? But aren't you the one who's bluffing? I know for a fact that I'm stronger than you. What level are you really? And how'd you manage to pull off killing our dear friends, by the way? Trickery, I presume? Earl seems like a bit of an air-headed guy, so my guess is that you found a chance to off him first?"

" **I am confident in my abilities. I will kill you too, if necessary.** "

Neiel laughed all of a sudden.

"Hey. You're hardly in a position to be threatening me. I hold your trump cards, and this precious girl of yours is in my possession. Perhaps you should admit that you've lost, and we can sit down and negotiate the terms of your surrender."

" **I have not lost.** "

"Look. Kien. I honestly don't have anything against you, and I don't care what kind of weird connections you have with that terrorist. I'm a simple man who prefers to keep to himself, and I frankly just don't like it when people try to kill me."

The red-haired incubus smiled sweetly.

"You intended to kill me. Unfortunately, your plan failed."

Neiel's voice was unwavering and serious.

"So after I kill you, remember that you started this fight first, alright?"

He slowly rose to his feet, holding a bright silver dagger in his hands.

∎


	23. Breath

_("Xue!")_

There was a voice in her head.

_("Xue! Listen to me!")_

_("K-Kien?")_

Everything was foggy.

Suddenly, Xuelan felt her chest lighten, and all the pain disappeared. Kien had melted it all away with just a single thought, and she slowly felt her senses returning to her. The girl vaguely perceived the tentacles swirling around inside of her, and she gradually realized that she was trapped in a predicament.

She was inside her cage and squeezed by a small tentacle monster.

_("Are you alright, Xue?")_

Xuelan suddenly jerked a little as those tendrils stimulated something weird.

Um... aside from this obvious predicament, it seemed like she was still intact... It was a lot better now that Kien had relieved the persistent suffocation.

 _("...I'm o-okay... I think.")_ She responded.

_("That bastard...")_

The black-haired girl opened her eyes slowly on the floor of the cage, and she vaguely perceived that there was fighting ongoing outside. 

She couldn't see the details, but there were ringing clashes of metal, gunshots, and explosions.

Most of it went over her head, largely because she was still in a daze. The pain relief that Kien had given her was almost like morphine, and it deadened the acuity of her senses. Xuelan was still trying to process exactly what had happened, and she only remembered that Neiel had been strangling her. 

Now they were fighting, but Xuelan was missing too many pieces of the story to comprehend the full sequence of events.

 _("Why did you leave me behind, Kien?")_ She asked, her head hurting.

There was no response at first.

There was another series of gunshots, and she heard her ex-boyfriend muttering a _('Fuck')_.

Ah, right. They were fighting.

Maybe it was a bad idea to distract him...

 _("I needed to take care of some things.")_ Kien responded haggardly. _("You would have gotten in the way.")_

His voice was suddenly strained and difficult, as if he was struggling and losing this fight.

_("Am I a burden?")_

_("No. You are— Urgh!")_

Kien's body was suddenly knocked back a hundred feet as if struck by a train. He tumbled on the ground like a ball of weeds blown in the wind, and he slammed against a boulder some distance away.

_("Kien?!")_

The red-haired incubus slowly walked over.

"You have no skills, Kien. What are you, level 1? Your fighting technique is decent, I'll give you that — but it doesn't mean anything when everyone else around here has a dozen different cards up their sleeves. I'm not even breaking a sweat."

_("Kien? What's happening?!")_

"Give it up, kid. You're new, and you're way out of your league." Neiel said, changing the grip of the knife in his hand. "I won't ask for any of your Infernal Marks, but learn the rules of this place, okay? You can't run around killing people outside of the Wastelands."

" **Fuck you.** "

The red-haired incubus sighed.

 _("Xue. Listen quick.")_ Kien's voice was rushed and pained.

_("Kien?")_

_("I can't beat this guy in a straight fight, so I'll need to use you to kill him. Be ready to act on my signal.")_

_("Kien, wait!")_

_("You'll know what to do when the time comes. I'll be back.")_

Xuelan struggled against the tentacles, but her ex-boyfriend vanished into a column of black smoke.

Neiel stared expressionlessly at the vacant spot on the ground.

\+ + +

The red-haired incubus turned to the cage.

He knelt down and twisted open an empty jar. After putting a strange cube of gelatinous food into the glass container, the tentacle monster immediately detached from Xuelan's quivering body and crawled into the cramped space like a well-trained pet. The girl was left behind as a shivering mess on the floor of the cage.

"So Kien apparently likes you a lot," Neiel commented, his voice neutral and emotionless. "It seems like I was right about employing a damsel in distress as bait, and he completely lost his cool."

He slowly crossed his legs and sat down on the ground again.

The demon peered in between the bars of the steel.

"Do you hate me now, Xue?"

The 24-year-old trembled.

"...You raped and killed me," she whispered.

Neiel had a blank and surprised look on his face.

"Killed you? No... I think you're misunderstanding something. You can't die. I kept you asphyxiated for..."

He slid open his Status window to check the time.

"...46 minutes. You were unconscious for the majority of it, but now that you're awake, you're totally fine. It'll take a couple more minutes for the oxygen to return to all your limbs, but then you'll be as good as you were before. No damage and certainly nothing permanent. It's really quite tame compared to some of the other stuff that happens in Hell."

Xuelan stared blankly at the incubus.

Even if he said that, it was a horrible and terrifying experience.

"What's your relationship with your Master, anyway? He seems to be just as inexperienced as you. The two of you seem quite familiar with each other for the short amount of time you've been in Hell."

Xuelan struggled to push herself up to her knees, but her limbs were weak and largely unresponsive.

"Is he your boyfriend?" Neiel asked.

"...My ex..." Xuelan answered quietly.

The incubus snorted.

"He must really hate you a lot then, to drag you down to Hell."

"Huh? ...I don't think that's the case..."

"I hate selfish bastards like him. I was married on Earth too, you know? Never in a million years would I ever think of putting my wife through this living Hell. Maybe I deserve to be here, but she has no part in this. I've done many bad things in my life, but I just want the best for my kids. I'm a simple guy, you know?"

"I... I don't know..."

Neiel suddenly slid a brown paper bag through the cage bars.

Xuelan stared blankly at the object.

After some hesitation, she slowly unwrapped it, and promptly discovered that it was a sandwich.

It looked juicy and delicious, like the best thing she had seen in a hundred years. In truth, Xuelan had no idea what it was made out of, and one of the layers looked disturbingly purple like red cabbage, but the aroma was amazing. It even contained some kind of meat. Her mouth immediately started watering, and she resisted the temptation to stuff it inside her mouth immediately.

Neiel also rolled over the apple from earlier and placed another bottle of water inside the cage.

Xuelan looked back up at him.

"Why?" She asked, entirely confused.

"You fed me. I feed you. That's the way I roll." Neiel responded. "Thanks for the meal, by the way."

Xuelan stared blankly, but then remembered that he had raped her. She had been unconscious and asphyxiated for most of the oxygen-deprived experience, so she hardly remembered feeling any of it.

It felt transactional and cold-hearted, but at least it was straightforward and consistent.

Neiel was easy to understand, and Xuelan felt like he was good at communicating his expectations.

Kien on the other hand... Xuelan still struggled to understand what he wanted. He was almost unpredictable.

"Did you learn your lesson, by the way?" Neiel continued.

"What lesson?"

"Don't leave yourself so vulnerable and helpless. If I see a free meal, I'm taking one. Others will do the same."

Xuelan suddenly felt a bit indignant and resentful.

This was victim-blaming, wasn't it? How was it her own fault for getting raped? It was seriously messed up for him to assault her, and then turn around and claim it was her own fault for compelling him to act that way. Xuelan hated this hypocrisy, and she disliked how he acted like he had done nothing wrong.

Everything about this universe was twisted and distorted.

Kien and Neiel were both messed up in the head, and neither were good people.

Truthfully, she wanted to go back to Earth, where she could run far away from both of them and live her own quiet life reading books, but here she had been abducted and forced to choose between the lesser of two evils.

"Xue, let me ask you a question." Neiel suddenly said.

Xuelan slowly met his eyes apprehensively.

"Kien killed Earl because he wanted ownership of the slave from the train. Do you understand this?"

She stared, and then nodded slowly.

The guard captain had mentioned this when he was interrogating Kien. If a demon killed another demon, then generally speaking the loser's slave became the victor's property. There seemed to be a mechanism that automatically transferred ownership between demons.

"If I kill Kien, then you will become mine."

Neiel stared at Xuelan with serious and unflinching eyes.

"Do you want me to do this? Because I _can_ kill him. And he will come back."

∎


	24. You’re all hopeless

"No."

Xuelan's response was immediate, without the slightest millisecond of hesitation.

"Kien — my ex-boyfriend — isn't perfect, but I don't want to see him die. We may have broken up before, but I don't have any hard feelings from when we used to date. I'd like to wish him the very best in his life. I don't think he's the right one for me, but it doesn't mean that I hate him."

The red-haired incubus narrowed his eyes.

"You don't hate him for dragging you down to Hell?"

The 24-year-old woman's gaze slowly drooped to the ground.

"...I don't hate people easily," she whispered.

"But you don't like it?"

"...I can see why he did this."

"That wasn't my question."

"I'll adapt to this. I'm flexible and resilient. I'm better suited for this than ordinary people."

Neiel suddenly stood up in exasperation.

The incubus suddenly looked angry for no reason, and he yanked open the door of the cage. He reached inside with his hand, seized Xuelan's arm, and dragged her outside underneath the plain moonlight. The naked girl stumbled slightly on the rocky gravel and nearly tripped. The sharp pebbles at the bottom of the ravine dug painfully into her bare feet, but there wasn't much of a reaction on her face.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Neiel growled at her.

"...What's wrong with me?"

"You're fucked up somewhere."

"...I mean, I guess so... isn't that the case for a lot of people?"

"I've seen many fresh women come through Hell. You're not as bothered by all of this as you should be."

"I'm not?"

"You're awfully defensive of your abusers. Kien stole away all of your entire future as an independent human being. I assaulted, strangled, raped, and destroyed you half an hour ago, yet you're already totally happy to have a normal conversation with me. I'd even venture to say that you don't even hate me."

"I don't hate you."

"That's not normal."

"People often tell me that I'm a masochist."

"That's completely irrelevant. And besides, I don't see you getting sexually aroused by torture."

"Some of it is kind of hot, I guess. Maybe. Well, not everything, but a some of it? I'm not sure."

Neiel narrowed his eyes further and stepped closer to Xuelan.

"You are lying to yourself. It pisses me off just watching you trying to justify everything that is happening to you."

\+ + +

"You have a self-esteem problem," he said firmly.

Xuelan hesitated.

"Is that why you submit to your ex-boyfriend? The reason why you allow yourself to be used, raped, and fucked over and over?"

The incubus suddenly grabbed the girl's hair with his fist and pulled tightly.

"I've never seen you trying to seriously resist," he growled. "You just lay there and take everything quietly."

Xuelan tried to pull away weakly, but her actions were not very convincing.

"How much do you think you're worth? Does it feel cathartic to be objectified? Humiliated? Trampled on?"

"Let... go of me..."

"Is this why you're secretly happy to be his slave? Even when he mistreats you and neglects to feed you?"

"I'm not secretly happy to be a slave."

"Really? I'm not sure that's what I see with my eyes."

"It's just a little BDSM."

"I don't think being an unconditional sex slave in Hell for the rest of eternity qualifies as BDSM."

"I can get used to this. I'll make it work."

"You deserve more than this. You can get away from him. Let me help you."

"He needs me. And he wants me."

"And your needs aren't important?"

"...I want to help others..."

"Fuck you. Damn everything. You're hopeless."

Neiel shoved the black-haired girl away in disgust.

\+ + +

Xuelan crumbled onto the ground, her knees bruised on the sharp gravel.

Her hair was a ragged mess, like a dirty street hag who hadn't received a clean shower in days.

She slowly lifted her head and looked at the red-haired incubus who was pacing restlessly in circles.

"I want to negotiate with you," Xuelan said.

"What?"

"You're stronger than Kien. I want you to spare his life. I'll pay for it with my body."

"No. I refuse."

"I'll suck you off."

"Fuck no. And if you think acting like a slut is what Kien would want, you're completely delusional."

"Can you forgive him, then?"

"Xue, you're sick in the head. It pisses me off."

"Then let us go. You have no reason to keep bothering us."

"You're reminding me of my daughter, and I fucking hate seeing all the similarities. It pisses me off so much that I just want to murder that asshole just to put an end to all of this. He needs to be dead, and you need to stay far away from him."

"I won't let you kill him."

Xuelan suddenly grabbed the incubus's wrist with her right hand.

She looked at Neiel's ice blue eyes with a blank expression in her amber pupils.

"You have no right to interfere in my life."

\+ + +

_("Xue, do it now.")_

There was a sudden whisper in her head.

Xuelan felt the fingers in her left hand tapering into claws. The transformation was subtle, and a thin layer of ink-black scale slowly coated her nails, turning them into razor-sharp blades as hard as diamonds.

_("Stab him through the heart. Don't miss. You must kill him in one stroke.")_

A flicker of confusion passed through Xuelan's eyes.

Wait. What?

But she didn't want to kill Neiel.

She didn't want either of them to die.

_("Do it.")_

Xuelan didn't move.

Without warning, Xuelan's hand abruptly moved without her control. 

She realized all of a sudden that Kien had temporarily taken command of her body, and forced her to attack the incubus against her will.

A look of horror appeared in her eyes, and she blindly wrenched her arm to the side. Her last-minute action shifted the trajectory of her clawed hand to the left. It only drifted to the side a few inches, but it was just enough to barely miss the vital point on the red-haired incubus. Xuelan's hand shot forward like a lightning bolt, and it skewered the man through the center of his chest.

There was a splatter of blood.

Xuelan felt the hot crimson fluid spray all over her face.

There was a look of shock on both their eyes.

\+ + +

Kien sprang out of a hidden shadow, firing the two guns in his hands in a desperate attempt to salvage the failed assassination attempt. Bright blinding flashes emerged from the firearm muzzles, and they discharged in rapid succession with empty casings flying out in the air.

Most of the bullets landed right on their target, blasting small holes through the red-haired incubus, but Neiel hardly budged from his spot.

He was like a rock solid mountain, unmoving in the face of a torrential rainstorm.

"So that's the way it's going to be, is it?" Neiel whispered bitterly.

He kicked Xuelan away from him, and she immediately crumbled to the ground in pure shock.

Neiel slowly turned around.

A massive bloody hole was gaping in his chest.

Kien was still firing at him, and he quickly emptied a full magazine clip into the wounded incubus. However, none of the bullets seemed to be effective, and they fazed the monstrous demon no more than .22 caliber bullets tickling a grizzly bear.

The red-haired incubus suddenly swept forward like a vengeful gust of wind.

In a blink of an eye, his silver knife pierced straight through Kien's heart.

"Hopeless trash," Neiel spat.

The black demon screamed.

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the conclusion of this arc doesn't make too many people upset...
> 
> As a brief note, Xue is still together with Kien. She's not a normal slave, and she is quite unusually "soul-bound" to him, meaning that her ownership doesn't transfer even when Kien is killed (Neiel is mistaken about this). Both of them will be dropping down a World in the next chapter, so this story about their flawed and complicated relationship continues...
> 
> I am a little worried that Xue's behavior in this chapter comes a little too far from left field. I realize many readers relate closely to either Xue, Kien, or Neiel, and none of them come out happy in this rendition of the ending. Is it hard to understand Xue when she is like this? I tried to hint a little bit about her emotional problems with references to her prior behavior online (i.e. her nudes and "fat old men"), but maybe it seems abrupt the way it suddenly flared out like this. She is a high-performing individual though, so perhaps her darker aspects aren't always the most obvious at first glance.
> 
> Truthfully, Xue is closely modeled after myself. My own relationship with BDSM (and submissive/masochistic things) is riddled with complicated baggage and mixed feelings, and it's very hard to illustrate it with all of its complexities and nuances. I was hoping to float the edge of borderline toxicity, but it's a narrow target to hit safely... I just hope it isn't too dark for the readers who are simply here for the smut.
> 
> Ultimately, this is a story about about imperfect characters, an imperfect couple, and imperfect relationship... in a nightmarish world filled with all kinds of bad things. There are good times together, yet also miserable parts.
> 
> Limits are crossed and serious mistakes are made. A lot of things are deeply twisted.
> 
> But I hope you're willing to indulge my fantasy of trying to fit all the broken pieces together.
> 
> I can't say I exactly recommend it, though.


	25. Interlude

It was a white space.

Pure white.

A giant elevator that was slowly descending through space-time.

Xuelan was sobbing. Tears streamed uncontrollably down her face, and she clung to Kien's unconscious body like a widow grieving over her dead husband's corpse.

Of course, she knew he wasn't actually dead forever, but knowledge of that fact didn't make it any less worse. She didn't exactly understand why she was still with her ex-boyfriend, but she felt simultaneously relieved yet devastated. The massive tumbleweed of emotions inside of her heart had spilled open out of her fragile exterior shell, and it bled all over the floor together with all of her sadness, solace, scars, spirit, and scoured soul.

It was her fault.

She had disobeyed him, and she had killed him because of it.

Xuelan pressed her teary face into his chest, and she wanted to feel him inside of her. She wanted to feel like she was part of him, and she couldn't bear an inch of separation in between their bodies. Even though she was hugging him, there was too much space, almost like a multi-dimensional universe sat as a barrier in between them. They were too distant.

She wanted him to punish her.

She wanted Kien to hit her, whip her, slap her, and make her feel the burning red hot lash on her skin. She wanted him to punish her until she cried and screamed, begging to be forgiven. She wanted to be driven to tears, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing uncontrollably even beyond her limits and past the extremes of her tolerance. She didn't want it to stop, because if he stopped, then it wouldn't be a punishment.

Xuelan felt like she deserved to be punished.

The black-haired girl was straddling her unconscious ex-boyfriend.

He was basically asleep, and she was naked with all her flaws and blemishes and twisted pitch-black darkness in plain view.

For some reason, he was still hard, and Xuelan grinded her vulva against his thick rod. She reached underneath her with her hand, and guided his cock into her tender raw entrance. She pushed down against him, and felt that stiff member sliding into her body cavity. It hurt because she was a little dry, but Xuelan liked how it hurt. She wanted it to hurt.

"Rape me!" She screamed, tears streaming down her face. "Fuck me and hurt me and rape me! Kien!"

She sagged over his chest, thrusting herself against him weakly.

"Punish me, Kien..."

The tempo of her movements rapidly slowed.

She was crying.

\+ + +

Kien gradually woke up.

He could faintly perceive Xuelan sitting and crying atop him, and he laid still for a short while.

Xuelan seemed to realize that he had regained consciousness, and she immediately pounced on him and kissed him deeply on the lips.

"Kien! Kien!" She cried desperately in between breaths and plunges of her mouth.

"Xue..."

Her tears spilled all over his face, and Kien blinked several times.

Without warning, Xuelan pulled away from him and quickly slipped off his body.

The girl pressed her face against the floor and lifted her bare ass high in the air, exposed and ready for him.

"Whip me, Kien! Punish me!" She cried.

"Xue..."

"I was a bad slave! I hurt you! I caused you to die!"

"Xue, stop that."

"I'm a slut! I'm a worthless slut! I'm not faithful and I betrayed you!"

Kien slowly stumbled to his feet, and he half-crawled over to hug the sobbing girl in his arms.

"Punish me! Punish me hard!"

"No."

"Please. I need this, Kien. I need this badly."

Kien squeezed Xuelan tightly into his arms, so fiercely it was like he was never going to let go.

"I'm sorry," he said.

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for being such a messed up author... ;-;
> 
> Next week I actually have some pretty big things IRL on November 20th, so the update pace will definitely slow down substantially. To be honest, this is a pretty good stopping point, so I might just leave off on here until I get back... (whenever that happens) but it depends on how badly I procrastinate, I guess.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who stayed all the way for this... My apologies to anyone I broke this story for.


	26. Dehydrated

"Give me more. I need more."

Xuelan's face was hot and steamy with faint slivers of moisture dripping from the corner of her mouth.

Her eyes were distant and dreamy, as if her mind wasn't present in reality. She rocked her hips against Kien's thighs, almost desperate to hump her ex-boyfriend for any firm appendage that she could rub her lower body against. Certainly, she would have preferred to have his thick cock filling her empty cunt, but Kien was making it anatomically difficult for her to gain access, especially since he was pre-occupied and busy with other physical affairs. 

"Master, give it to me. Fuck me, pleeeeease."

The black-haired demon was trying to mold a container of clay under the scorching hot sun, but the human girl was climbing all over his lap, pressing her needy pussy against his legs like an affectionate cat desperate for attention. It was challenging for him to performed detailed pottery work with the troublesome distraction squirming about, and he was clearly beginning to look frustrated.

"Xue, get off of me," he said quietly.

"My belly is burning up. I feel feverish. I want you inside of me, Master~"

"You're severely dehydrated. And starving. Xue, you're misattributing your sensations to sexual arousal that you don’t have."

"But I'm immortal, Kien. I won't die anyways, so you can just forget about all those pointless things and come back to fucking me. I want you to fuck me lots and lots and lots! You need to use me nonstop day and night, rape me constantly, and then you'll have lots of EXP and become amazing and strong and better than all the other demons! You don't need to worry about feeding me anymore."

"Xue, knock that off."

"I've been a bad sex slave, haven't I, Master? Are you going to whip me today, pretty please? You haven’t hit me in a long time."

"No."

Kien pushed the black-haired girl off his lap and struggled to return to the clay water distiller that he was trying to mold with his hands.

Presently, the two of them were on a rocky beach right against a vast ocean. The wretched environment was deserted, and there wasn't a single animal or plant in the area, which meant there was no food or water that a human could use for nourishment. The seawater was salty and had a slight reddish tinge — it tasted faintly of blood (Kien had tried it when they first arrived) — and it was otherwise foul and smelled almost like sewage.

They had come to this place almost a full week ago.

After dying on 【World 4】, they had descended a level to 【 World 5 】, which was substantially worse than the previous Hell by a few subtle measures. Most notably, the Fifth Hell was visibly less hospitable, and there was even less wildlife and essential living necessities than their prior world. While incubi and many other demons do not rely food or water for sustenance, deprivation of these amenities would genuinely be miserable for their human servants.

In theory, it was only this bad because they were biding their time in the Wastelands.

Kien was still under-leveled, and Xuelan had been behaving... strange... so initially, Kien had hoped to spend some time alone with his ex-girlfriend to see if her mental state would improve after a few days in a quieter environment. He was reluctant to expose her to the shocking horrors of another demonic civilization, and likewise Xuelan had been eager to have private intimate time with him.

...Perhaps she was too eager.

The 24-year-old was unfazed by his rejection and she was kneeling on the burning black sand with her intimate privates displayed lecherously to him. Her head was slightly craned to the side, and she reached back with her hands to spread her pussy lips, moaning obscenely as if attempting to entice Kien to enter her doggy-style.

"Punish me, please..." She whined. "I love it when you hurt me and abuse me. It feels amazing."

The dark-haired incubus did not even blink the slightest in response.

Xuelan was... emotionally broken... in a sense.

A few days ago, he had caught her trying to cut herself with broken seashells, and Kien had immediately forbidden her from self-harming actions with a 【 Soul Order 】. Truthfully, there was a brief period of time when he tried to ban all sorts of different negative expressions, but it contrarily only seemed to make things worse. In a sense, it was like how plugging one crack in a leaky barrel only caused new fissures to burst open in different places.

Over time, Kien had gradually learned that it was important for Xuelan to have a means to express herself, even if he felt it was unpleasant to watch, and he gradually alleviated the restrictions on Xuelan's soul. Currently, Xuelan had almost zero constraints on her verbal behavior. She was generally allowed to say what she wanted, and consequently it was common for her to repeatedly refer to Kien as her "Master" even though the incubus now felt uncomfortable about their twisted dynamic.

He did not want Xuelan to be his 'sex slave', at least while the girl was so clearly psychologically broken.

His current priority was to figure out how to feed the girl and obtain water in this wretched environment.

"Xue... this isn't like you."

"Hm? You think this isn't like me, Master~? But maybe I've always been a slut like this, deep down inside."

The girl was now trying to kiss Kien's legs, and her mouth was slowly creeping up towards the sex demon's crotch. Her desires were obvious, and she clearly wanted to take Kien's member into her mouth again, but the incubus gently pushed her face away. They had been having at least some form of sex every few hours for the past week, and this was starting to become too much for him. Part of the reason was that Xue's body was becoming malnourished and physically battered, and her ragged figure was barely sexy anymore. Lately, she had been trying to fuck herself on Kien's cock like a mindless robot even when her vagina was completely dry, and Kien could barely find any pleasure in what they were doing.

"You aren't a slut, Xue."

"Hm? You probably don't know? Should I explain it for you?"

"Xue, stop."

"In college, after we broke up in high school, in the bathroom..."

"Please."

"...I really liked it when they came on my face. There was also the chemistry TA..."

"Xue, you aren't a slut."

"...He would have me wear a vibrator in class..."

"Xue, listen to me."

"...I got extra credit if I stayed afterwards..."

The incubus suddenly pulled the black-haired girl into his arms, and forcefully brought his mouth against Xuelan's lips, trying to silence her. The girl tried to struggle out of Kien's grip. Eventually, she managed to slip free, and she fell backwards on the dirty sand. She immediately corrected her posture and tried to position herself like a good slave.

"Master... I'm dirty... you’re using the wrong hole."

Xuelan raised her butt prominently in the air, and tried to spread her ass cheeks for him.

"I'm a bad girl, so you should fuck me in my bad slave hole."

"Xue..."

"Are you disappointed in me, Master? Did you like me because you thought I was a sweet and kind pre-medical student? I'm very good at lying, Master. I lie to everyone, and everyone thinks I'm pretty when I lie. But lying is bad, so you should punish me the way a worthless sex slave like me deserves."

"You're fixating on all your negative parts. There is so much more to you than just a sex slave. You like nature and trees and stories and books and poems. In high school, we used to write letters to each other, and I always liked the doodles you put into the margins of the paper. I like every part of you, and I mean it seriously when I say I want all of you, and not just part of you."

"But Master, you made me into your sex slave, right? This is exactly who I am, and this is all who I'll ever be."

"No. To me, you are much more."

"I don't want to be more. I want to be a slave and nothing else forever. So punish me, Master, please..."

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Curious about how everyone would handle this situation... how would you deal with this in Kien's shoes?
> 
> I'm curious if any of you BDSM-experienced readers have experienced this situation when the sub just entirely breaks down. Um... I have, so that's why I'm writing about it... ^^; I hope it's not too cringe-y to read.


	27. Honesty or lies?

It was faintly snowing outside of the seaside cave, and sparse snowflakes drifted from the sky. 

Kien was sleeping.

Xuelan quietly sat beside him with a blanket made out of a shadowy material wrapped around herself. It was cold, and the black-haired girl was shivering. The climate in this place was strange. Scorching hot days were contrasted with freezing cold nights, and the temperature often seemed to plummet at sundown.

In her semi-delirious state over the past week, she had watched her ex-boyfriend attempting yet failing to craft a clay water distiller to purify the sea water. The design he attempted was something like a [misshapen clay jug with a long spout](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/df/cc/98dfccf292ed6f978684bd04251553a2.jpg), but Xuelan could tell from a single glance that he was never going to succeed with that sort of strategy. Aside from the fact that they clearly lacked a well-constructed kiln with good temperature control to fire pottery, the silty clay that her ex-boyfriend found in the area was granular and full of impurities, which was liable to crack and shatter at higher temperatures. He did not have a potter's wheel, and instead he was trying to fashion of large jar by rolling concentric rings of clay snakes per the elementary school art class method. It was unlikely for him to craft a long and delicate clay tube using this crude strategy, but Kien stubbornly attempted it again and again each time it fell apart.

His was clearly inexperienced, and this was an utterly hopeless endeavor, but he still didn't give up.

There were actually countless other mistakes that Xuelan immediately noticed in the back of her mind, although she said nothing out loud. When working with natural clay for pottery-making, there was actually a very laborious preliminary process for extracting the impurities from fresh clay dug from the ground. There were [dry and wet processing methods](https://practicalselfreliance.com/making-clay/), both of which involve many hours/days of kneading and sifting in order to eliminate any contaminating dirt, sand, or tiny rocks. Kien used ocean water to re-hydrate the clay, which naturally re-introduced more impurities, and the sodium chloride would produce toxic fumes and hydrochloric acid vapor if fired in a kiln. There were major theoretical issues with the fundamental design of Kien's oversimplified clay distiller, and the lack of a cold water condenser meant that a majority of the boiled water vapor would escape as steam. Finally, in ancient times it was common to apply a [glaze](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_glaze) to ceramics to waterproof them, since unglazed "[biscuit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biscuit_\(pottery\))" earthenware was naturally water-porous. Despite all of his efforts, Xuelan doubted that Kien was familiar with these intricate details of the pottery-making process that had been perfected over many millennia of human civilization.

He was only a street gangster, after all.

Making functional pottery definitely wasn't as easy as it looked in video games.

Truthfully, the easiest method to harvest fresh water in this setting was probably to depend on water condensation. The steep temperature gradient between day and night guaranteed that the [dew point](https://www.mbma.com/media/10.01.01Condensation.pdf) was reached every evening, which would cause water vapor to naturally condense into liquid. A simple method like spreading a tarp (perhaps made of the shadowy black bondage fabric?) could collect a surprisingly large amount of water, and in fact it was the preferred survival method in a variety of different inhospitable environments like arid deserts.

Xuelan was a geek, and she knew all sorts of weird trivia from the variety of her far-ranging studies. In fact, studying was the _only_ thing that she was really good at, and her self-identity was closely tied to her performance in school. Most of her self-worth came from the fact that she had always been a top student, and she clung to her grades and class ranking desperately almost like her entire life depended on it.

Even during those dark times when she was emotionally falling apart and cutting her wrists again, Xuelan would contradictorily drown herself in more studying and pull multiple all-nighters, escaping from her problems in the abstract land of equations and textbooks while heavy dreary bags formed underneath her eyes. 

Ever since high school, Xuelan had always been the unfriendly, unattractive, and gloomy class valedictorian that nobody liked. It was well-known across the entire campus that she would do almost anything for extra credit, and she was occasionally bullied by rival students who would threaten to sabotage her school assignments or flush her notebooks down the toilet. Later on, she was blackmailed with various compromising photos and other unsavory X-rated details that would surely ruin any of her future aspirations towards medical school. Since she was Asian and furthermore extremely quiet, everyone automatically assumed that she was boring as cardboard, and presumed that somehow her parents must have been involved with bribing the university administration for A+ grades every semester. Most people thought her inhuman scores were a total lie, especially since she was better at multiple-choice exams than practical or subjective exams, and even the faculty were convinced that Xuelan was somehow cheating on the assessments using leaked answer keys.

Even though college hadn't exactly been a very enjoyable experience, grades were the only thing Xuelan clung to for self-worth.

Without school, Xuelan hardly knew who she was anymore.

The black-haired girl stared blankly at Kien's sleeping body while his chest slowly rose and fell.

...none of that mattered anymore, though.

She was a sex slave now, and her only purpose in life was to serve as a flexible sex toy for her Master to farm EXP.

And to be honest, she wasn't totally opposed to it.

\+ + +

Was she broken?

Xuelan wasn't actually sure.

Maybe she was, and maybe she wasn't.

Maybe she had always been broken all along, even if nobody realized it.

Kien seemed to think that she was more broken than usual, but Xuelan personally felt like her brain was totally intact. She could still recite the periodic table in her head, and her mind was still entirely functional even if she superficially acted a little bit like a sex-starved bimbo on the surface. Most men that she had been with didn't seem to like it when women were too smart, and there was a certain way that everyone expected masochistic sex slaves to behave in BDSM scenes.

In truth, her current state was very close to her real nature.

Xuelan had a long history of self-harming that she kept carefully hidden from others, and her thirst for masochism was closely tied to this unpleasant aspect of herself. She had an abnormal sex drive, and she often used to secretly masturbate several times a day. It was legitimately true that she was sexually perverted to the extreme, and anyone who knew her intimately for long enough quickly realized that her fantasies tended to run very hardcore. Even her classmates rapidly figured out at she'd soak through her panties when they harassed her, which only caused their interactions to become even more unthinkable and severe. There was even a period of several months when she somehow ended up coerced into dating one of her bullies in a complicated quasi-consensual relationship with plenty of gaslighting.

The only difference from now was that previously she had self-restraint.

And she was deeply ashamed.

Why was she such a pervert? And a slut? Why did her body always react like this?

She tried to desperately hide those parts of herself.

She didn't want to disappoint the people that she cared about, so she tried her best to act like she was normal.

But now Xuelan didn't care anymore.

There wasn't a reason to hide anything anymore. Her future was gone, and she was a sex slave for the rest of eternity. Kien kept repeating he wanted to have the "whole" of her, but Xuelan felt like he was entirely mistaken. He was clinging to an imaginary version of herself. Right now, Xuelan was being the most **_honest_** she had been in her life. The previous woman that he had known was definitely a lie. He was deluding himself if he thought she could be somehow "fixed".

If he didn't like the current version of herself, then that meant that Xuelan wasn't inherently likable.

But she had always known that for a fact. Deep down inside, she knew she was an ugly, disgusting, and worthless slut that nobody would ever truly like, and it made sense that he no longer found her attractive when her unfiltered self was showing.

This was who she really was, and Xuelan hated it.

She wanted Kien to brainwash her sooner so she no longer needed to exist.

If he got tired of her sooner, she could finally disappear.

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >.< Sorry for the continuous angst chapters... I didn't mean to write another one and it just popped out when I sat down to write today! ;-; Originally, this was supposed to be an upwards facing chapter showing that Xuelan isn't totally broken and able to think for herself... but maybe it backfired?  
> Someone should hit me on the head so I can get the plot moving again. Originally, this was supposed to be a chapter when Kien and Xue do healing activities together, but I'll need to defer it to the next chapter...


	28. Breakfast

Xuelan licked her lips and crawled over Kien's legs like a cat.

He was still sleeping, but the faint reddish glow of dawn was beginning to creep in through the entrance of the cave. 

Since it was already morning, he probably wouldn't be _too_ upset if she helped herself to breakfast now. The 24-year-old was too polite to distract him when he was totally asleep in the middle of the night, but what kind of man didn't like a wakeup call in the morning? The incubus seemed to naturally get hard very easily, even when he was unconscious, and it was hard for her to simply ignore his near constant erection pressing up against her near-naked body.

Perhaps she ought to have felt bad for him, since a persistent everlasting erection was a genuine medical condition in human men known as [priapism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priapism), but perhaps sex demons had different anatomy. However, Xuelan could only guess that it was very uncomfortable, which must have been exacerbated by her ex-boyfriend's incredible level of self-restraint. In either case, she justified her actions by telling herself that she was definitely doing Kien a favor.

She lowered her head to Kien's hard member, and licked softly.

Although she knew almost no facts about demons, Xuelan had a very vivid and creative imagination. For instance, what if incubi were like milk cows? Kien always seemed to produce an enormous volume of semen despite ejaculating many times every day, and it was easily in the range of gallons. Xuelan imagined that the buildup of fluid must cause a lot of pressure inside of him if he wasn't regularly milked.

Consequently, as his personal sex slave, it was obviously her responsibility to make sure he was properly taken care of... right?

Mmh...

Xuelan really liked the feeling of him inside of her mouth.

While it certainly wasn't candy, Xuelan did genuinely consider it to be a real treat.

She liked how she could take her sweet time when Kien was still asleep. There was no need to actively put on a show or worry about her neck cramping trying to make him cum fast. Instead, she could go at her own pace, and Xuelan greatly preferred these leisurely fellatio sessions where she could just suck on him for hours. This was obviously the proper way to enjoy a dick. It wasn't nearly the same feeling to have a rape stick thrusted repeatedly down your throat (which was a _different_ kind of fun...). Even so, Xuelan was a masochist, and she liked to periodically tickle her gag reflex trying to take Kien as deep as possible even during her most relaxed blowjobs.

If she could have it her own way, Xuelan definitely would have liked to do this all day, but she was perfectly aware that there was a time limit to her morning shenanigans. It wouldn't be long until Kien woke up, and then he would probably try to push her off him. Before that point, Xuelan wanted to make him cum, which meant she at least had to move at a moderate pace.

The black-haired girl squirmed as she sucked greedily and rubbed her thighs together.

If this were earth, she definitely would have been masturbating herself right now. 

However, the invisible piercings on her genitals ensured that she couldn't even touch herself for pleasure. They would deliver a shock if she attempted anything remotely like masturbating with her own fingers. This might have seemed like a troublesome barrier at first, but Xuelan was a resourceful girl. It only took a day or two before she figured out a loophole to the punishment system.

Xuelan bit her lip and grabbed Kien's hand.

He was still asleep, and she quickly dragged his limp arm underneath her kneeling body, positioning it below her sweet spot.

Then she started grinding her hips against his hand, and she pressed his fingers up against her slit. Xuelan was essentially masturbating herself through Kien's hand, and she guided his motionless fingers to all the right places as she moaned with her mouth full with her ex-boyfriend's dick, her hot breath quivering all over his saliva-coated member.

This felt so much better.

She wanted to go even faster.

She imagined that Kien was teasing the folds of her body with his fingers, and she slowly inserted the tip of one of his appendages into her tight hole.

Mnghn...

More.

She wanted more of this... lots lots more.

Xuelan could feel his cock pulsating in her mouth, and... and...

\+ + +

Kien abruptly pushed her off of him.

He withdrew his hand, which was now coated with her sexual secretions, and he looked upset.

"Xue. Again? How many times do I have to tell you to stop doing that?"

The incubus rubbed his eyes and sat up from the ground with a serious frown on his face.

The girl looked thoroughly crushed by the interruption, mostly because she was so close to getting him to orgasm!

And... it genuinely felt very good...

"M-Master, will you let me finish?" She asked pleadingly.

"No. You are degrading yourself like this. You need to calm down."

"But..."

"We need to find you food and water. Stop thinking about sex, Xue. You've gone completely crazy. Look, if you want to starve yourself, then I won't eat anything either. How does that make you feel? No sex until we find food? We're in this together, and I want you to take better care of yourself."

"It snowed last night, and I had some melted ice."

"Food, Xue. Real food."

"But Master... your cum is food..."

"No. You can't live off of semen. This isn't a porn novel. That's impossible."

There was suddenly a lecherous glimmer in Xuelan's eyes.

Actually, she had already done her own math! A typical human man ejaculated around a tablespoon of semen, which typically contained 5-7 calories. Under ordinary circumstances, it was impossible to obtain enough calories from cum unless a person was literally drinking the sperm pooled together from of hundreds of different men every meal. 

However... Kien was an incubus! And he produced a lot of cum!

Although Xuelan lacked a measuring device, she roughly estimated that each one of his loads had around a half-pint of semen. It might not sound like a lot, but a typical mouth could hold around ~60 mL of fluid. Kien could fill her up four or five times over in his enormous messy ejaculations, which approximately came out to around 250 calories if she swallowed everything. It was almost equivalent to half of a blueberry muffin each time!

Kien also had the stamina to go for multiple times in a day, meaning that it was absolutely theoretically possible to obtain enough calories from pure cum. Admittedly... it wasn't a nutritionally balanced meal... and she hadn't actually been sucking him off eight times a day (yet), but her stomach certainly hadn't been entirely empty for the past week.

Her ex-boyfriend appeared to have forgotten that she was obtaining calories from his semen, and in truth she was actually less starved than he currently believed her to be. Furthermore, she was getting a lot of fluid from his semen, which was delaying the worst effects of her dehydration.

Although semen (~350 mOsm/kg) was slightly saltier than blood (~290 mOsm/kg), it was far better than drinking sea water (~1000 mOsm/kg) or urine (~600 mOsm/kg). It was closer to the osmotic pressure of 0.9% normal saline (~310 mOsm/kg), which was used in IV fluids to hydrate hospital patients. Human kidneys could concentrate urine up to ~850 mOsm/kg, so Xuelan calculated that it was theoretically possible for her renal medulla to excrete more net sodium than she consumed from ingesting semen, meaning that it wouldn't be too dehydrating.

Semen was clearly a reasonable answer to all of Xuelan's problems, at least temporarily.

"It's my breakfast... Master... I calculated that your cum should have around 250 calories..."

She blinked her eyelashes innocently at Kien, trying to tug on his sentimental heartstrings.

He wanted her to eat, right? Surely this line of attack would work.

"So feed me please, Master?"

The black-haired incubus was speechless.

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My poor internet search history...
> 
> Anyhow, do people dislike it when Xue is too lewd? I'm just curious... I haven't totally decided how to take their relationship in the future, and there's a variety of different directions that I'm considering. I kind of want to think of a way to tone her down more...


	29. You’re my friend

Kien stared at Xuelan's eager eyes.

She looked so sure of herself — almost smug — as if she was 100% confident that Kien would do exactly what she said. Even though she acted demure and innocent, there was almost a predatory look in her amber pupils. It was obvious that she wanted his dick, and she was prepared to manipulate him like a puppet-master in order to obtain her lascivious desires. 

Kien knew exactly what she was doing.

The incubus had been extensively involved in the local BDSM community in the past, and Xuelan's behavior was essentially "topping from the bottom". There was a certain itch that she desperately wanted scratched, and many devious cats knew how to employ sly tricks to compel their 'hooman' masters into serving as their loyal backscratchers.

Just because the Dom was the one holding a whip, it didn't always mean they were the one calling all the shots.

Kien recognized this behavior, and he had mixed feelings about seeing Xuelan like this.

On one hand, it was reassuring that she hadn't completely disintegrated into an apathetic slave. The girl currently prioritized her own selfish desires rather than her partner's satisfaction, and the predominance of her own personal wishes (even if they were horribly misplaced) was a probably good sign. Total apathy was dangerous. Truly "broken" people stopped having their own desires and lacked self-will, and there was nothing you could do for an empty shell of a person.

On the other hand... he felt deeply uncomfortable about Xuelan's sudden sex addiction.

Kien had dated Xuelan for three years when she was in high school. Truthfully, he had known she was underage almost since the very beginning, and he had initially doted on her like an overprotective elder brother. The romantic aspects emerged later on, and even then, he had been very uncomfortable about drawing her into his seedy world of darkness. Despite the taboo feelings that he secretly held for the underage girl, they had a five-year age gap, and Kien deliberately tried to keep their relationship PG-13. He patiently answered her never-ending questions about BDSM, but he refused to actually roleplay as her Dom, and their digital relationship was mostly vanilla and fluff.

He had basically picked up an overly curious and innocent sweet kitten that he slowly grew attached to.

...A kitten that he shouldn't have taken home.

He fundamentally felt responsible for Xuelan's initial exploration into the darker online world.

Kien wanted her to have a positive and safe experience with BDSM, and at least guide her so she didn't feel as ashamed about her masochistic tendencies. Originally, it seemed like things were going incredibly well, and their close bond was wonderfully intimate. Even though it abruptly ended when he took their relationship a step too far, Kien possessed fond memories from the precious time they spent together.

After the day they separated, they spent six years apart.

Six years was a long time.

What exactly had happened to Xuelan in the span of those years?

He had briefly heard Xuelan mention that her college years were miserable, but Kien was unaware of most of the details. It was incredibly disturbing to see Xuelan slowly degenerate and unwind into something so twisted. Something critical had snapped inside of the girl's mind, and it was impossible for Kien to ignore the 180 degree turn in her behavior, even if he was a sadist with his own burning desires.

The obvious conclusion that was a multitude of horrible experiences compounded during her young adulthood. Her experiences had eroded her fundamental psyche. It sounded like she had been bullied, blackmailed, forced into non-consensual BDSM experiences, and potentially even raped by her classmates. Kien wasn't sure how he was going to address all of that trauma, and frankly he was just as much of a hypocrite for failing to control his sexual thirst and dragging her into Hell on a sudden sex-starved impulse in the first place.

Kien felt guilty.

The 'before' and 'after' image was seared into his brain, and he couldn't let it go.

He closed his eyes.

\+ + +

"No." He said firmly.

Kien turned away from the girl and stood up from the ground.

Even though his dick was throbbing terribly from the interrupted session of fellatio, he couldn't let Xuelan fall apart even further. The premedical student seemed to be getting worse by the day, and he was self-aware enough to know that he was the cause of it. Kien had a monstrous level of self-control. He could undergo un-anesthetized surgery without screaming in a pain, and physical injuries were hardly anything that fazed him. Experiencing a bout of blue balls were hardly a drop of water in comparison.

"But M-Master, I'm hungry...?" Xuelan ventured, almost in confusion. "...and you need to eat breakfast too?"

The incubus faced the empty rocky wall of the cave.

He couldn't bear to look at her right now.

"Our relationship is over, Xue." He said slowly. "You are no longer my slave."

The black-haired girl immediately froze.

There was silence.

"...Not that we were in a relationship in a first place," Kien laughed self-deprecatingly with a quiet wry voice. "I abducted you and I'm a rapist."

"Y-You can't do that!" Xuelan suddenly protested, almost flabbergasted.

"And why can't I?"

Kien slowly walked over to Xuelan and placed his hand lightly on her collar. It slowly began to melt away and vanish, until the girl's pale neck was totally bare. The hefty weight and presence of the black metal evaporated from her throat, almost like it had truly disappeared from existence.

In truth, it wasn't possible for Kien to undo the enslavement ritual. However, at the very least he could turn the symbol of Xuelan's enslavement invisible. She wouldn't feel it on her neck, and maybe everything would eventually seem like a distant vague dream if she stopped seeing the constant visual reminders. He intended to treat her as a slave only on paper.

"From now on, we are strangers. Get out. And put on some clothes."

"Y-You're abandoning me?" Xuelan sounded horrified.

"You're my friend."

Kien materialized a large roll of black shadowy cloth and dropped it in Xuelan's arms. They weren't fashioned into clothes or anything specific, but Kien was sure that his ex-girlfriend would be resourceful enough to convert the magical fabric into something to wear. She was a smart woman, and he was fairly confident that she could take care of herself.

"We'll no longer live in the same cave. I'm okay with helping you out as your neighbor and acquaintance, but if I loan you money, I expect you to pay me back. I don't want to see you trespassing in my space, let alone my bed, so stop walking around stark naked."

"But what are you going to do about food? EXP and levels? Don't you need sex in order to survive?!"

"I don't need you. I'll find some other stranger to rape and feast on."

"No! Rape me! I'm 100% okay with you fucking and hurting me! And I thought you said you couldn't bring yourself to assault innocent strangers! I'm a willing victim, and I'll even volunteer! I can be your perfect toy, just tell me how you want me act! I don't have any limits! I don't need any safewords, and you can torture me any way you want! You don't need to corrupt yourself further raping strangers in this dark horrible place! You can give it all to me!"

"I'm not a good person, Xue. You helped me realize that." Kien responded.

She looked like she was about to cry.

Kien walked out towards the exit of the cave.

"I'd rather hurt, maim, and kill a thousand innocent strangers than see you break and fall apart like this, Xue." He spoke quietly.

He put on his long black cloak.

"So I'll see you around, maybe. Good luck with everything, friend."

∎


	30. Negotiation

Xuelan’s hands shook.

Tears slowly dripped down her cheeks, but she quickly wiped her eyes to stop the flow.

No! She couldn't let Kien leave!

She scrambled to her feet, almost tripping over herself as she stood up. She immediately ran after the incubus before he could step out of the cave and tried to grab his hand. However, her ex-boyfriend had quick reflexes, and he pulled away before Xuelan could get in range. It was like chasing an ephemeral ghost, and she couldn't reach him no matter how she tried.

"Xue, stop."

"Let's talk. Please."

"No. We're finished."

"Mast— I mean, Kien, please. I'm sorry. I upset you. I'll try to be better."

"You didn't upset me, Xue."

"Then give me another chance!"

The incubus sighed and turned around. Xuelan almost collided into him, but he rotated his body to the side, avoiding even the slightest brush of physical contact with the girl.

"You didn't do anything wrong, Xue," he said slowly. "But being with me is bad for you."

"You hate it when I'm too much of a slut, don't you? You like innocent girls better?"

"You're not a slut."

"You don't need to lie to make me feel better, Kien. I know what I am. I'm a hopeless pervert."

"Xue, stop."

The black-haired girl showed no indication of letting up.

"Kien, I'm selfish. I need you."

"Xue..."

"I'm not crazy or broken. Maybe you think I am, but I never stopped thinking rationally. Do you know what happened the last time you left me alone in a cage?"

The incubus looked like he was trying not to listen, and there was a pained looked on his eyes. Somehow, he seemed to vaguely know what was coming, even though the two of them had never talked about it. He almost couldn't bear to hear this.

"...I got raped." Xuelan said dryly. "Neiel strangled me until I passed out, and he fucked me while I choked to death."

"Xue... I'm sorry... That was my fault."

"If you leave me alone, it's going to happen a lot more. I'll be destroyed by other demons, and someone might capture me and take me far away. They'll tie me up, rape me, abuse me, whip me, and torture me all day until I can't even scream from my lungs. What if I end up like that horrible girl in the train? The only reason I'm even halfway physically intact is because you've been protecting me the entire time, Kien."

"I'll... watch over you... from a distance..." Kien sounded hesitant. "I'll make sure it doesn't happen."

"...Is that really what you think is best, Kien...?"

Xuelan had a sad look in her eyes.

"I guess I can understand if you're not attracted to me anymore. I'm too disgusting to have sex with? You can't bring yourself to stick it inside me now? Maybe you think the shy and innocent high school version of me was better?"

"Xue, please."

"I'm sorry, Kien. I ruined your ideal image of me. I guess I'm a lot worse in person than I was online."

"Xue, you're beautiful. Stop putting yourself down. Being with you in reality has been like a dream. It's just..."

"I can try to change myself into the type of woman you like."

Xuelan slowly unfolded the black sheet of fabric that Kien had given her. It was a large rectangular cloth made of a light and lacy gauze-like material, and approximately the size of a blanket.

She wrapped it around herself, wound the fabric over her torso, crossed it over and knotted it behind her neck like a [sarong](https://www.kislly.com/how-to-tie-a-sarong/). It was the simplest way to make a dress out of a large sheet of cloth, and it wasn't even necessary to do any sewing. Later on, she would need to trim the fabric to better-fitting dimensions, but the current state of the improvised black dress wasn't half bad.

"How does it look?" She asked.

"It looks great. It's just... we still need to break up, Xue."

The black-haired girl went quiet for a moment.

All of her attempts at changing his mind seemed to be ineffective so far.

"Can I make a request then?" Xuelan asked.

"What is it?"

"Don't kick me out. Let me live with you. You don't have to touch me... and I won't touch you unless you ask me to... but please don't make me stay all alone outside. It drops below freezing at night, and it's cold. It's safer if I'm closer to you, and we can keep each other company. Two brains are better than one, and I'm better at some things than you are."

"..."

"I'm not broken, Kien. I'm not going to literally die without sex. I mean... you might... but I just wanted to help you."

"We are no longer in an intimate relationship."

"I understand."

"Fine. You can stay. But we're not sharing a bed."

"Okay."

"And I want you to work. Keep yourself productive."

"I can do that. Thank you, Kien."

The incubus sighed and turned back around.

Somehow, nothing ever seemed to work out the way that he expected. He didn't remember Xuelan being so emotionally manipulative, and she was so hyper-rational in her insanity that it was almost frightening. Everything that she said seemed to be supported with powerful and persuasive arguments. It was almost if she was prepared to debate with him about all the merits of why she should be enslaved for eternity.

However, Kien also knew that this was twisted. Nobody ought to enjoy real slavery.

If they claimed that they did, there was surely something broken inside of their head.

Nobody casually bartered away their life and freedoms like mere poker chips. Even if it was rational, certain things transcended rational argument. Even if it was rational to kill a baby snake, it didn't mean that it ought to be done.

Murder was still murder.

There was something horribly sick in Xuelan's head right now.

\+ + +

"One more thing, Kien."

The black-haired incubus paused.

"Will you marry me?" Xuelan asked randomly out of the blue.

She said it casually, almost as if it were just an ordinary trivial question.

"..."

For a second, Kien thought his ears were broken.

"What?"

"If you don't want me to be your slave, can you at least make me into your wife?"

There was another silence.

Kien was dumbstruck, and he didn't even know how to respond.

There were a million things wrong with Xuelan sentence.

"I like you and I'm soul-bound to you for the rest of eternity. I don't mind if you fuck or rape other women, since I know incubi need lots of sex for food, so you don't have to worry about me being jealous. I'm also okay with it if you want to have a harem, and I'll even help you build one filled with all the cute girls that you like. But if you're going to run around raping other women, can you at least make me more special than the rest of your victims? I think it would be nice if we were married."

The incubus covered his face, and his head started hurting.

No... he definitely wasn't ready for this.

Xuelan was way too much for him... she deserved someone far better than trash like him.

"No. Rejected." He said.

"Why?"

"You're experiencing the [Suspension Bridge Effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misattribution_of_arousal)," Kien explained. "You're mistaking all of your traumatic experiences to be love. You don't actually have feelings for me. It's a psychological illusion."

"You don't believe in Stockholm Syndrome?" Xuelan asked innocently.

"...What?"

"Psychology classes are a mandatory medical school prerequisite," Xuelan reminded him. "I learned a couple of things in college, so I know about all these things. I always end the semester with A+ grades."

"So you're self-aware of the fact that you're experiencing Stockholm Syndrome? I abducted and raped you."

There was devious smile on Xuelan's face.

"And so what if I am?"

"It's not your natural feelings."

"Do my natural feelings really matter, Kien? I'm a rationalist and I'm extremely good at multiple choice exams. Marriage is objectively advantageous to me, so I suggested it. It just happens to be convenient that my current emotions align with a rational choice of action."

"I won't marry you like this, Xue."

"That's okay."

"I can't accept it. I won't marry anyone."

"That's fine, and I didn't expect you to say yes. I just wanted to bring it up so that you were exposed to the idea. You can let it stew around in your subconscious thoughts a for while. Maybe you'll even start dreaming about being married someday. Oh, also? Is it possible for us to have kids? I figured we were biologically incompatible somehow, but if there's a way to make it happen, I wouldn't mind having some with you."

"..."

Xuelan smiled sweetly.

"If you ever change your mind, you're always welcome to propose to me again."

∎


	31. Seashells

There was a tired look in Kien's eyes, and he looked away.

"I'll be gone for the whole day. I'm going to hunt for a bit." He said.

"Okay. Stay safe."

The incubus did not explicitly say exactly what he was hunting for, but Xuelan knew the implicit meaning behind his words. Hell was a place where it was necessary to kill to survive, and Kien had done none of that over the past week. He had dedicated most of his attention towards feeble attempts to care for an emotionally fraught Xuelan. They had a fair amount of sex, but it was hardly enthusiastic, and he did not gain much EXP from their half-hearted interactions. 

Kien was still underleveled, and fighting other demons was extremely risky. It was impossible to predict whether he would return alive, and there was some sort of mutual understanding that Kien was going on a dangerous killing expedition in the Wasteland. Due to Hell's Walpurgisnacht system, higher level demons tended to be concentrated in upper worlds, and lower level demons were concentrated in lower worlds. Currently, they were in 【 World 5 】, which was an intermediate world, but most inhabitants were still significantly stronger than Kien.

"It's fairly quiet in this remote area, so it probably won't be a good idea to wander too far away, Xue."

"I won't."

There was a hesitant look on the demon's eyes, as if he was unsure about leaving.

"Xue," he repeated.

"Yes?"

"Take care of yourself. Please. Actually _try_. I know you haven't been trying. Eat. Drink. Groom yourself."

"I will."

"Even if we're not in a relationship, you're important. You are my most important person, and you're invaluable to me even if you think you're worthless. It hurts me to see you still self-harming. I'm happy that you have feelings for me, even if they're artificial, but try to give some of that love to yourself."

Xuelan stiffened and withdrew her arms behind her back.

They were covered with faint gray scars from many years of cutting. A few of the red gashes were fresh, which Xuelan had inflicted on herself using seashells earlier this week. Ordinarily, the girl always wore long sleeves to conceal those numerous faded marks, but they were now in plain view, especially since there were brand new cuts to highlight her damaged skin.

She didn't like to talk about them.

In truth, she used to cut anywhere that she could reach with a razor blade — her thighs and hips were most convenient because they wouldn't show underneath most clothes — but her skin was riddled with old marks. When she was active on the Internet, she used to photoshop the nudes that she took of herself to erase the evidence, but they were impossible to hide in reality.

It was easier to pretend that she didn't have those scars.

If she didn't look at herself in the mirror, and instead drowned herself in the computer monitor, or buried herself underneath a mountain of textbooks, she wouldn't have to look at her own body. When she was online, Xuelan could hide herself behind a fictional persona. Maybe she could be outgoing, innocent, interesting, bubbly, and cute? Xuelan was very good at flirting with digital men. Over the Internet, Xuelan was a different person, and it felt nice when all these different guys fell for all her sweet and deceptive lies.

Meanwhile, she spent most of her college years in sweatpants and oversized hoodies, neglecting herself and her own physical body. She hated makeup and shopping for clothes. Her roommates liked to go clubbing and partying, and Xuelan had nothing but silent brooding jealousy for her female classmates that always seemed like peacocks the way they could transform into sexy divas after a few hours in the bathroom.

She did not have many friends.

His words reminded her of the fact that her body was disfigured and ugly, and her mood soured again.

Kien didn't want to have sex with her anymore because she was too disgusting.

"Xue, if you don't want to do it for yourself, can you do it for me?" Kien repeated quietly. "I removed all the 【 Soul Order 】 commands that restrict your behavior. But please don't cut. If you need someone to think of, tell yourself you're holding back for me. I'm not your Master, but I feel so much stronger when I think of you being happy. I want you to love yourself. Your happiness is my strength."

Xuelan eyes took a darker shade and she averted her gaze.

"...You're so unfair," she muttered almost inaudibly.

Kien furrowed his eyebrows with concern.

"Did you say something?"

"No."

The incubus sighed. He changed the topic.

"I've set you as the 【 Owner 】 of the piece of 【 Shadow Cloth 】 that you're wearing. From now on, you should be able to use it like the way I crafted bondage gear, so I hope you can make use of it. At the very least, you should be able to fashion some better clothes with it."

"Thank you, Kien."

"I'll be leaving now. Take care..."

The black-haired girl nodded. The incubus was extremely awkward in his farewell, and Xuelan looked away. She didn't have anything meaningful to say to him, especially since he had broached a sensitive subject that she hated to talk about. Fate was strange, and their dysfunctional dynamic was clunky and difficult.

\+ + +

A short while later.

Kien was far away and nowhere in sight.

Xuelan was sitting on the empty beach.

The long sheet of black shadowy fabric was in her left hand. It flapped in the seaside wind and occasionally lifted up from the ground, but the black-haired girl was pinning it down with her knees. Over the past fifteen minutes, she had quickly learned that it was possible for her to magically manipulate its dimensions and various other physical properties of the fabric just by willing it with her mind. She could make it shrink or grow, stiffen or loosen, strengthen and weaken, and numerous other transformations. 

There was a sharp seashell in right hand.

With a clean motion, she cut off a small square from main fabric.

The resultant piece still retained all the properties of the original, and in fact the cloth could expand to the same size as its parent. It was a blatant violation of conservation of mass, and the ability to endlessly make duplicates was a clearly broken design feature. Xuelan still hadn't quite figured out all of its rules, but there were various quirks, like the fact it wouldn't quite harden to rigid structure, and the shadowy substance seemed adamant about remaining as some form of textile.

She cut off a few more pieces and formed them into rope.

The seashell was like a razor, and she sliced off thin strings of shadowy fabric that she intended to braid into strong cord. With cordage, she could make any more things, like a gill net that she could cast into the sea, to see if she could catch anything from the reddish foul-smelling water. Ordinarily, it was very time-consuming and laborious to make rope, but the shadowy magic cloth made everything easier, and Xuelan was almost like a spider the way she quickly produced silky fibers.

Her hands moved quickly, and Xuelan accidentally cut her finger.

"Ow," she said.

A trickle of blood emerged from her index finger.

The seashell was close to her wrist, and Xuelan stared at it for a long time.

It would only take a slight movement of her hand to bring the edge to her scarred forearm. She only needed to make a slice, and Xuelan could already imagine the sting on her skin. It would feel so numbingly good, like being comforted by a good old friend who had been her lonely companion for so many years. She really wanted it. She wanted to feel the blade on her arms.

She paused.

Xuelan took a deep breath and stood up, leaving the seashell lying on the ground.

She thought of Kien's face.

The girl turned towards the wind. It blew in her face, causing her hair to whip in the salty spray of the ocean air. She spread her arms for a moment, and mentally controlled the coils of black rope to crawl up her legs like snakes. The black tendrils slithered up her torso and hugged her skin. She had it tighten around her limbs, and the feeling of constriction was extremely familiar and even reassuring.

It would definitely be possible to do self-bondage with these shadowy ropes, although it wouldn't be quite the same, since she could easily untie herself at any time.

Xuelan glanced at the bloody seashell on the ground.

She looked out the vast expanse of the sea.

...Maybe she ought to do something else, rather than lingering around her old impulses.

∎

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always feel like apologizing in my author's notes somehow. Every time I write something, I feel like I'm doing something wrong. For the most part, I just start typing and something comes out — it's probably inconsistent and edgy and moody (I mean, I am a moody person) — yet at the same time I wish I could write something better that everyone can enjoy. I wish my writing tone wasn't always so temperamental.


	32. Tangled in frustration

Xuelan sat down on a rock for a moment to rest.

Her stomach hurt.

It wasn't quite like period cramps, but she genuinely hadn't eaten anything solid for an entire week. The hunger pangs were constant and ever-present, and they were hard to ignore. Previously, she had been able to distract herself with Kien's presence, and sex was an excellent way to put her mind on something other than her empty stomach.

However, now he was gone.

It had barely been an hour since he left, and Xuelan already missed him.

She didn't like this vague, crampy, and nonspecific pain inside of her.

Razors were nice because they were logical. If you cut yourself, there was a nice line, and it hurt just like the way you expected it to. Being able to see the physical evidence of pain was reassuring, and there was almost some kind of straightforward causality to it. In contrast, there were many other things that hurt — emotional, abstract, or visceral — but Xuelan hated that kind of fuzzy throbbing pain because they was nonsensical and hard to explain. She wanted to point to a wound and say this was the reason why everything hurt, but it was rarely ever that simple.

Xuelan only liked certain types of pain.

Self-harming and masochism was so hard to comprehend.

For that matter, Xuelan was definitely a freak.

Why couldn't she just be a normal person like everyone else?

\+ + +

Eventually, Xuelan finished crafting a few nets, and she climbed up some rocky crags. 

The ocean was was murky and opaque, and it was impossible to see what lay underneath the surface of the rolling waves.

Although there was no obvious sign of marine life or vegetation, Xuelan felt like it probably wasn't safe to wander into the water without confirming what laid in its depths. She had a gut feeling that something lived in the water, since there were many seashells on the beach. Seashells were mostly calcium carbonate, and they were the exoskeletons of shellfish. Even though the red-tinted water looked eerie, bare, and smelled foul, the presence of shellfish likely indicated that the strange ocean had its own ecosystem. Since this was Hell... the aquatic wildlife was probably dangerous...

But the mantra was to eat or be eaten, right?

If Xuelan wanted food, then venturing towards the sea was probably her best bet.

The black-haired girl dropped a loose net into the water that was anchored to the rock, and then walked over to a different location and dropped another net. She placed several nets in several different locations because she initially assumed that most of the nets would come up empty. Instead, she was really hoping to see if there was any particular spot along the shoreline that might be better for fishing.

Truthfully, attempting to catch fish from the land wasn't likely to be very effective. Most species of fish did not wander so close to the tidal zone, and most indigenous fishing cultures would take their boats out into the ocean in order to cast their nets in deeper waters. There was one form of beach fishing known as [seine fishing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seine_fishing#:~:text=Seine%20fishing%20\(or%20seine-haul,seine%2C%20or%20from%20a%20boat.), but it typically involved two people, with one party swimming with the a net deep in the water.

Xuelan did not craft her nets in any particular special fashion, and she randomly picked several different widths for the mesh size. Rather than trying to optimize the most efficient net, she was mostly concerned with determining whether anything lived in the ocean, and she could adjust her strategy after characterizing her initial haul. Even if she only picked up seaweed and kelp, it could still be considered a success. After all, seaweed was also edible and nutritious.

After Xuelan made her rounds dropping a half-dozen different nets, she returned to the starting point and was confused to discover that all the nets that she placed were completely gone.

They had basically vanished!

Slightly concerned, Xuelan dropped another net and slowly backed away while cautiously watching the anchor.

At the point she was around 100 meters away, the black net simply disintegrated out of existence. A lightbulb flashed in Xuelan's head, and she belatedly realized that there was a maximum range for the 【 Shadow Cloth 】 ability. While it was possible for her to generate infinite amounts of rope and fabric, it needed to stay within a certain range of herself or else it would disappear. The black shadowy rope was a magical substance, and it naturally had its own rules and limitations.

Xuelan was a little frustrated at herself.

She spent a majority of the day crafting nets that had essentially gone to waste. Thankfully, the raw materials were virtually free, otherwise it would have been an enormous loss to waste hundreds of yards of rope. Ordinarily, it took an incredible amount of effort to extract and process natural fibers into cordage, and a single handmade fishing net was a very expensive product.

It was her own carelessness that led to this outcome.

Xuelan felt a swirl of emotions inside of her. Her aching hunger, relationship problems, and generally miserable condition amplified her sense of distress. She missed Kien. He had basically dumped her, right? Xuelan had barely managed to salvage their living arrangement, but otherwise he would have completely washed his hands of her.

Her heart brewing with discontent, she tossed another net into the water.

This time, she held onto it as murky waves crashed against the rocks, while feeling upset and extremely gloomy.

Her thoughts spun in all sorts of negative directions, and her emotions were tumultuous like a raging sea.

She had no choice but to wait in the salty spray of water that smelled like sewage. The rocky shoreline was cold and wet, and Xuelan's mood was sour because she doubted there would be any fish swimming in such rough waves. However, there weren't any better alternatives, and she certainly wasn't about to jump into the water.

After about five minutes of waiting, Xuelan gave the net a tug.

Weirdly, it seemed to be stuck.

She pulled harder, and it didn't budge.

It was almost like there was something on the other end, clinging to the net and refusing to let go.

Adamant, Xuelan pulled as hard as she could, and suddenly it came free. She stumbled backwards, and the net went flying into the air along with all of its contents.

Xuelan only had the time to catch one glimpse, but then she almost immediately screamed.

The net was chock full of wiggling tentacles.

The rope came undone as it flew, and then the sky was raining slimy wriggles and giant alien balls of spaghetti. They went splat against the rock that Xuelan was standing on, and a few of those terrifying little monsters landed directly on the girl's torso. Xuelan struggled to defend herself, but the swarm of those squid-like creatures were relentless with the way that they piled on top of her. They were not particularly large, and they each only had six tentacles with one toothed suction cup on its the central body. However, they latched onto each other like daisy chains, and it quickly became a tangled slimy nightmare.

Xuelan could barely see through the cloud of tentacle monsters, but she vaguely became aware that thousands of little tendrils were slithering their way up the tiny rock. It was almost like the entire ocean floor was carpeted with a forest of tentacles, which on second thought made a lot of sense — there wasn't any seaweed or other marine life on the barren beach because the tentacle monsters acted a water filter, trapping any aquatic debris from washing up ashore.

They seemed to have some kind of hive-consciousness, especially with the way they worked seamlessly together.

Presently, they seemed to be attempting to drag her into the water. Various appendages were tightly coiled around her ankles and other limbs, but there were so many of them that Xuelan promptly became claustrophobic with the way they piled over her. A mountain of snakes rapidly formed on the rock, completely blocking out the sunlight, and Xuelan felt like she was buried deep inside of a snake pit with absolutely zero sense of direction.

Her only saving grace was that she had reacted quickly.

As soon as she perceived that the tentacles wanted to drag her into the water, Xuelan promptly used her own 【 Shadow Rope 】 to tie herself to the rock. Thus, it rapidly became a tug-of-war between two sets of tendrils, with Xuelan desperately trying to mentally manipulate her own shadows to prevent herself from being hauled out to sea.

It felt like she was being pulled apart, and Xuelan felt like she was being constricted by hundreds of powerful serpents pulling in opposite directions. The tentacle battle was relentless, and within seconds, she couldn't move an inch. Soon after, she was strangled so tightly that she couldn't breath, and then Xuelan was struggling to tie herself to the rock with as many shadow knots as possible before she lost consciousness. It was becoming apparent that neither party was winning, and Xuelan knew that she needed to ensure the stalemate would continue even when she passed out.

If the tentacle monsters managed to undo the 【 Shadow Rope 】 that tied her to the land, the unconscious Xuelan would be dragged underwater, and it was doubtful that she'd ever be found again if she washed out far into the open sea.

Of course, the tentacles also attempted to distract her by assaulting her poor genitals, but that was almost a minor detail at this point.

Xuelan single-mindedly focused on tying knot after knot after knot, and her entire brain was filled with a maddening dedication to tie herself more securely. At a certain point, she had no idea what she was tying anymore, but it hardly mattered as long as it connected her to the rock more tightly.

...It was stupidly ironic.

Who would have imagined that self-bondage could have such a ridiculous practical application...

∎


	33. Low tide

When Kien finally returned, it was low tide.

He found Xuelan completely unconscious and tied bizarrely to a rock near the sea. The shadowy bondage was haphazard and erratic, as if someone had taken a massive tangle of black rope and wrapped it around a boulder randomly with crazy knots and frantic kinks every few inches. The visual effect was a lot like a helpless insect encased in an enormous spider web. The black shadows were essentially an impenetrable cage.

Although the incubus wasn't entirely clear about what had happened here, he knew at first glance that the girl was somehow responsible for all this.

Based on the small number of leftover tentacles that were trapped and still wiggling underneath the meshwork of shadows, Kien could only assume that Xuelan had been attacked by a large number of sea monsters. The bulk of the tentacle swarm had apparently retreated back into the ocean along with the receding tide, but Kien was immediately relieved that the girl seemed to be unharmed... well at least, mostly.

He limped over to the rock.

The girl had apparently squeezed through a close call.

He had never considered using the bondage rope as some kind of defensive cocoon. That said, instantly mummifying oneself in restrictive bondage would hardly be the first split-second reaction of any ordinary person. It was probably pure coincidence that Xuelan happened to be a masochist, and it was even more fortunate that the girl had the quick thinking to try something so unusual and bizarre. 

Kien hesitantly brought his hand to the tangle of black shadows.

He touched it gently, and slowly unraveled the rope with a mental command.

Technically, as Xuelan's Master, he still held total power over his ex-girlfriend. It was a trivial for him to override the girl's control of the 【 Shadow Cloth 】, and he could even revoke her abilities if he wanted to. However, he tried to hold back his impulsive urges to go on a reckless rampage, and he forced himself to respect Xuelan's autonomy.

Part of the reason why he had broken up with her in the first place was to verbalize his own commitment.

If he didn't announce out loud that Xuelan was no longer his slave, Kien feared that he would swept up by his destructive desires, and instead devolve into the mindless sex demon that exploited the girl like a dirty object. He cared for Xuelan too much to subject her to the uncensored atrocities of his sick imagination, especially when her emotional state was so fragile.

Even if Xuelan claimed she was hardcore with "no limits", Kien knew that she was being incredibly naive. The girl was extremely vanilla in comparison to a majority of the twisted freaks in Hell. She mainly only had mild BDSM fetishes such as bondage, spanking, and non-con. Before coming to Hell, she didn't even have that much of an interest in anal. Kien was sure that the girl would completely shatter if exposed to the more gruesome fetishes, such as amputation, scat, vore, or worse. The innocent girl simply had no idea how horrible it could get, and she was probably blissfully unaware of the most disturbing nightmares.

He needed to protect her...

...from others... but also himself.

Especially when he was in a foul and gloomy mood.

Kien wordlessly unwound the shadows from Xuelan's cocoon.

A few sporadic tentacle monsters slipped out from the rope prison, and the incubus rapidly snatched them before they could scramble away in the sand. He quickly put the monsters inside his 【 Inventory 】 since they were probably edible. Xuelan had gone through a lot of effort to obtain food. Even if she had snared them inadvertently while wildly spinning rope in her half-unconscious state, she had technically succeeded at catching her own dinner.

The black-haired girl had really tried her very best.

He had to give her credit for that, at least.

His eyes narrowed.

\+ + +

Xuelan slowly stirred awake to a vague awareness that Kien was holding her.

He was carrying her!

Even though she was only barely conscious and badly abused after a grueling session of tentacle rape, her spirit instantly felt giddy and light. She practically melted into the feeling of being held by her ex-boyfriend. It was a simple action, but this basic expression of intimacy was nearly _everything_ that she desired. It assuaged the aching feeling in her heart like an ice pack soothing a burn, and she wanted to drown herself in the addictive warmth of his arms.

Suddenly, everything was completely okay again.

"Kien!"

Xuelan tried to hug the incubus across the torso.

However, the sex demon incubus promptly made everything difficult.

When he noticed that the girl had finally revived from her half-dead state, Kien dodged those clingy arms, and he immediately set Xuelan down on the ground.

"Seems like you're awake," he said apathetically. "So you don't need me to carry you anymore."

He unceremoniously walked off on the beach.

Xuelan was left behind on the sand.

"Kien... you..."

She struggled to get up, but then slipped.

Tears started building at her eyes.

She just wanted a hug after everything she went through.

Why couldn't he understand?

Why did he have to come back and then immediately leave again?

"Kien, come back!"

Xuelan stumbled to her feet, immediately wincing because her joints felt weird and feeble. The tug-of-war between the tentacles likely overextended many of her limbs, and her body was still reeling from the aftereffects of extreme constriction. Once again, she had likely suffocated to death, and she had been unconscious in a vegetative state while tied to the rock for the entire afternoon. 

The sex demon had a callous look in his golden eyes.

"We aren't in a relationship," he said coldly.

"But we don't need to be in a relationship to..."

Xuelan abruptly froze mid-sentence.

She suddenly realized that Kien was severely injured.

His face was smeared with blood, and his ear was completely torn off. It looked like he had been mauled by a bear, and there was a heavy limp to his gait. It was difficult to determine exactly how he was injured, especially since the demon's face was completely expressionless, but there was probably something wrong with his hips and legs. Some of his joints were bent the wrong way, and he probably had a series of broken bones. If anything, it was already remarkable that he had even been carrying her in the first place.

"You're hurt." Xuelan whispered.

"Evidently."

"Let me heal you. Just give me a second, and I can sit on your dick and then—"

"No."

Kien pushed the girl away.

"Kien!"

"We're not in a relationship."

"Kien, you're being ridiculous. I don't even care if—"

Empty air suddenly came out of Xuelan's mouth.

She struggled to formulate words, but then she realized that she had been 【 Silenced 】. No matter how she tried to move air past her vocal cords, she couldn't produce a sound. There was just the faint noise of her wispy breath. Evidently, Kien did not want to hear her talk, and he even used his abilities to forcibly shut her up.

Xuelan spun her head around in exasperation, but then she noticed the dark brooding look in the incubus's eyes.

He was in a very bad mood.

A very, _very_ , bad mood.

"Stay away from me," he almost snarled. 

Xuelan went quiet.

She could tell that he had a bad day. 

His 'hunt' had likely gone very poorly. Just like her, he was badly beaten up and defeated.

"If you want your voice back, go somewhere else." Kien growled.

Tears flowed freely from Xuelan's eyes.

She wanted to tell him that she loved him.

She wanted to hold him and touch him.

She wanted him to know that she was so relieved that at least he came back alive.

She didn't want him to be far away and distant.

Xuelan hesitantly reached out with her hand. She touched his shoulder, trying to convey all of her wordless thoughts with a single action. Even if she couldn't speak, she hoped that she could somehow express everything that she wanted to say.

Kien immediately spun around and struck the girl across the face.

She fell to the ground with a bright red palm mark glaring on her cheek.

Her messy black hair cascaded to the ground like the sagging branches of a willow tree, her hot tears dripping to the sand.

∎


	34. You’re an idiot

Xuelan blinked a few times, her vision a little blurry from the water in her eyelashes.

She looked up while rubbing her eyes. There was a shocked expression on Kien's face. He looked almost horrified at himself, as if he had somehow accidentally committed the worst crime in the entire universe. The incubus slowly backed off, and it seemed like he was on the verge of turning tail and running away.

Frankly though, Xuelan didn't understand what was the big deal.

It didn't hurt that much, and honestly she even liked it. She was used to being struck in plenty of worse ways, and Xuelan was happy that Kien finally slapped her. As long as it was him, she wouldn't mind being hit over and over. People often called her a masochist, and sometimes they looked at her like she was a freak monster for enjoying these things. 

Xuelan liked anything that Kien gave her.

Even if it was pain, it was a special kind of pain because Kien was the one inflicting it. She wanted the stinging feeling to last longer, and it was even better if there was a bright red mark that remained long after he was gone. The residual aching pain was evidence that he had been there, and nobody could deny that they had been intimate together.

Xuelan was clingy. She was the type of person who wouldn't wash the bed sheets for weeks after a significant other slept over, because she wanted to be enveloped by their lingering smell for as long as possible. Even if the bed sheets were dirty, running them through the laundry machine would sterilize the scent, and then the last traces of her lover would be entirely gone.

The black-haired girl struggled to her feet and threw herself at Kien.

He was just about to flee, but she didn't want him to go.

Her arms were tightly wrapped around Kien's bloody midsection from the back, trapping him in place.

"Let me go..." He whispered, a pained look in his eyes. "I want to be alone."

Xuelan squeezed tighter.

The incubus seemed afraid to touch her.

"I'll leave. You can stay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything." Kien murmured incoherently.

Xuelan shook her head, and she swung around to the front. She slid up Kien's chest and brazenly kissed him on the lips.

She kissed him again.

And then again.

"Xue, stop." He struggled to push her away. "You need to let this go. You're not my slave. You're not my wife, and you're not even my girlfriend. You can't keep doing this. We're not a couple."

She stared at him with her amber eyes and grabbed his hand.

She pulled.

He didn't budge.

She tugged even harder in the direction of their cave and pointed at her throat, miming out a desire to speak.

Kien sighed. He hadn't intended to 【 Silence 】 his ex-girlfriend in a sudden fit of his flash temper, especially since he had previously promised himself that he would let Xuelan live as an independent individual. He hated himself for failing his own commitments, and it was only more blatant evidence that he could never trust himself as her lover.

He released the restriction on Xuelan's speech.

"Let's go back," she said as soon as she regained her voice, as if there was absolutely nothing wrong at all.

It was almost like she had forgotten that he had slapped her across the face just moments ago.

"Xue. Please."

"I know you're injured. You should rest. I'll go boil some water. I'll be right back."

Xuelan let go of his hand and ran off in a different direction.

Earlier in the morning, she had collected a large number of ice stalagmites that had formed overnight during the snowstorm, and the frozen liquid had likely melted into fresh water over the course of the day. Even though incubi did not need food or drink, she figured that having some water to sip might sooth his miserable state. At the very least, he could clean up a little.

Before Kien could say anything, the 24-year-old woman disappeared from the scene. 

He was left standing by himself on the beach.

\+ + +

Xuelan was too good for him.

Kien was absolutely sure about that. He didn't deserve the feelings that she gave him, and if anything she should have hated him. He was flawed and broken in a hundred different ways, and he still felt deeply guilty about summoning the girl to this twisted hellscape. It was thanks to his actions that she had gone completely insane.

He took out the little tentacle monsters from his inventory, cut them to pieces, and skewered them on a stick.

He exerted some effort to start a friction fire, shortly thereafter he set the monster meat to roast across the open flames.

They didn't have any seasonings. In theory, there was sea salt from the ocean, but reddish brine smelled so foul that Kien had reservations about dipping any food into sea water. Regardless, Kien planned to roast the cubed squid-like tentacles over an open flame. 

Kien was a naturally productive person, and he hated being idle. Even if he was injured, he wanted to be doing something with his hands while he rested. On Earth, he spent a lot of time training and honing his skills, but right now it frustrated him that he couldn't get stronger with ordinary methods in Hell. His reaction time wouldn't improve with reflex training, he couldn't increase his endurance no matter how many kilometers he ran, and lifting weights was absolutely useless for enhancing power.

He hated being weak.

He couldn't protect the people important to him if he was weak, and he couldn't fight.

It was deeply infuriating, and Kien instinctively wanted to go back and train all day long. He wanted to train straight through the nights, skipping breaks and rest time. People often told him that this wasn't the right way to organize a training regimen, but Kien was more motivated than anyone else. He had the willpower to run marathons, if not out of talent, but rather sheer monstrous tenacity to continue pressing forwards no matter how much his muscles screamed in agony.

As an infamous gangster renowned as a living monster, he broke the physical limitations of his body by following this strategy. People claimed that he didn't feel pain, and he would often kick so hard that it would shatter the bones in his legs. However, bones would heal even stronger every time they were broken, and within a few years, Kein had limbs that were stronger than steel.

Right now, he couldn't train like that.

He was just a squishy level three incubus.

He could only level up by hurting the one that he loved, and Kien couldn't subject Xuelan to the intense training regimens that he would ordinarily design for himself. It conflicted with every moral fiber of his being, and the terrible contradiction in his heart rendered him immobile and frozen in place.

Kien couldn't do anything.

He was helpless like this.

\+ + +

A short while later, Xuelan returned to the cave with a black shadowy pouch filled with water. 

She seemed surprised to see Kien cooking.

"Where'd you get those?" She asked.

There was no response at first.

The incubus was silent, and he showed no sign of reacting to Xuelan's question.

"You caught them in your rope prison on the rock," he replied after a long delay.

"Oh."

Xuelan suddenly had a vague unpleasant side thought that those were probably the tentacles that were the closest to her body. Therefore, they were probably the same monsters that had been sticking their appendages inside of her for nearly the entire afternoon...

Well, at least they were being turned into food...?

Anyways, her thoughts floated back towards more pressing matters.

"Um... Kien," she spoke hesitantly.

"..."

"I can tell you had a bad day... do you want to want to talk about it? I can listen."

The incubus went silent again.

He continued to turn the stick of monster meat over the campfire.

"I mean..." Xuelan stammered.

He poked at the burning coals with a stick.

"If you'd rather not, that's fine too. I just wanted to let you know that I'm totally okay with it if you want to use me as a punching bag to relieve stress. If you're worried about consent, you don't have to worry because it's completely okay with me."

His arm was motionless.

"I know you don't want me as your slave or anything... but I'm still allowed to volunteer as a friend, right?"

"Xue, I don't want it," Kien suddenly.

"B-But you actually do, don't you? I know what you like. You told me that you like hearing me scream when you first brought me here."

"Then forget about it. Pretend that conversation never happened. I changed my mind."

"I'm seriously okay with it though."

"But I'm not."

"Kien..."

"Xue, stop trying to change my mind."

The incubus turned around and passed Xuelan a skewer of cooked monster meat.

"Eat." He said.

Xuelan stared at him.

He was still covered in blood and injuries. Despite his wounds, he went back to skewer another wriggling tentacle, and then he held the stick over the fire. Even though he said nothing about who he was cooking for, it was obvious that he was mainly doing this for Xuelan's sake. There was nobody else who needed to eat.

She sighed.

The girl sat down on the opposite side of the fire.

"I'll eat if you let me healfuck you," she demanded, changing her strategy.

"No."

"The food will go to waste, then."

"That's your problem, Xue."

"Kien, you're an idiot."

"You're insane and broken."

"Then that makes two of us." Xuelan retorted with a deep frown.

She abruptly pointed at Kien with the skewer of roasted monster meat.

"There's something I need you to understand."

The sex demon's eyes narrowed warily. 

"The two of us are a pair," she announced emphatically.

"So?"

"It doesn't matter if you don't want me as your slave, or if you don't want to be in a relationship. You're stuck with me, and we're soul-bound to each other for the rest of eternity. I don't care what fancy words you prefer to use, but the two of us are still a unit."

"That doesn't mean we have to act like one."

Xuelan sighed and stood up.

"Do you hate me, Kien?"

"No."

"Do you care about me?"

"Yes."

"Then do you trust me?"

"...Yes, I suppose."

"Because I don't hate you, I care about you, and I trust you, too."

Xuelan walked over to Kien and knelt down where he was sitting.

"I like you. I want to date you. Can we try to be together? Please? Let's just try a little harder? I think you've giving up too easily."

Her amber pupils were heartfelt and sincere.

"I want you to learn to accept me."

∎


End file.
